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Grand fHapids. Mich. 



THE 



ENEMIES OF COLUMBIA 



BY 



LAPRl3lR9fi) ■ 
STEPHEN D. WILLIAMS, L. L. B. ^.^^ 



PUBLISHED BY 

S. D. WILLIAMS, 

GRAND K A FIDS, MICH. 

18%. 



r 



PREFACE. 



In placing this little volume before the public we are 
cognizant of the fact that it is to follow many able 
efforts along this same line. The whole subject of 
temperance has been fully discussed in such admirable 
works as ''Alcohol and The State" by the Hon. Robert 
C. Pitman, L. L. D., "Our Wasted Resources," by Dr. 
William Hargreaves, M. D., ''Our Country," by the 
Rev. Josiah Strong, D. D., and the "Cyclopaedia of 
Temperance," by Funk and Wagnalls. In writing this 
we do not pretend to have discovered any new principles 
nor to have advanced many new ideas. Nor do we 
claim any excellence for it as a literary production for 
such has not been our aim. The object which we have 
had in view is the putting in readable form the main 
facts embraced in the question of prohibition, and in as 
brief a manner as possible. To the average man who 
has but a few moments to devote daily to reading and 
study statistics are dry and uninteresting. We have 
endeavored to avoid as much as possible the use of 
tables and have introduced only enough of them to 
establish our propositions and to make our statements 
appear authentic. It has been our purpose to use the 
common language of the people, getting as near to 
simplicity as possible. And believing also in the 



VI 



PREFACE. 



method of teaching by the use of objects and illustra- 
tions we have sought and obtained the assistance of so 
good an artist as Mr. Sylvester Riley of Lansing, 
Michigan, to whose able pen we are greatly indebted. 
We believe the conditions of the times warrant the 
utterance of strong words, and we have no appology to 
offer for the pla;inness with which we have spoken. 
Yours truly, 




CONTENTS. 



I. Letter to Every American Laboring Man .... 7 

II. Letter to Any Merchant or Manufacturer. ... 67 
in. Letter to Any Farmer 83 

IV. Letter to Any Christian 95 

V. Letter to Every American Citizen 115 

VI. Letter to Every American Citizen 155 

VII. Letter to Every American Citizen 206 



Grand Rapids, Mich. , August 27th, 1895. 

TO EVERY AMERICAN LABORING MAN, 
EVERYWHERE, U. S. A. 

Dear Sir :— 

With due respect for your religious, political and 
other views, I address this letter to you. It is with no 
desire to antagonize you, nor to take away one good 
privilege from you that I send this communication. 
Born upon a farm in the pioneer days, in Michigan, 
and laboring side by side with the "boys," in the forests 
and in the fallow, I know well how to sympathize with 
the laboring man in his effort to earn an honest living. 
What I shall write, though w^ritten in the utmost kind- 
ness and the deepest sympathy, will be with the desire 
to state things plainly and to call them by their proper 
names. No cause can receive good at the hands of any 
one whose purjDOse is to pander to fixed notions of a 
bad character, or to a false sentiment founded upon 
prejudice. We need to speak plainly these days. . The 
laboring classes are numerically strong, and many have 
found it convenient to say nice, though oftentimes, 
meaningless things for the purpose of gaining their 
assistance in furthering their own ends. We have only 
the good of the great masses of humanity in view, in 
writing this letter, and w^e ask of you to patiently read 
it through before you pass judgment upon its merits. 

The conditions of the times are such, as to produce 
serious thought among all truly loyal Americans. 
Mere notions and prejudices should no longer keep us 
from studying into every cause w^hich has helped to 
produce present conditions, it matters not what it 
may be. 



8 EVERY AMERICAN 

Has it ever occurred to you, that it is not the lack of 
means or oi3portunity to create wealth which is the 
trouble with us in these hard times, but rather the lack 
of sound business methods ? We have the same pro- 
ductive earth that we have always had, capable of yet 
greater production and development. Millions of acres 
of fertile lands are yet unbroken. Millions of tons of 
minerals are scattered throughout every portion of the 
country, untouched and unsought. Billions of feet of 
timber yet stand in thQ forest. These are the natural 
opportunities which God has given to his people. 
Millions of people today, need some portion of these 
things ; and the process of furnishing them to the peo- 
ple is the creation of wealth ; and the jDrocess of the 
creation of wealth is what we commonly call ' ' business;'* 
and this diversified business gives employment to the 
people and m^akes civilization possible. 

Here are the raw^ materials, sufficient to last for the 
ages yet to come, waiting to be transformed into what- 
ever men and women desire. With every variety of 
climate, and with all of these rich and undeveloped 
resources, can it be truly said, that what this nation 
lacks is opportunity ? On the other hand there are 
thousands of men and women who are able and willing 
to work, who are out of employment, and who are in 
neeed of the barest necessities of life. Even the 
wealthiest are eager to obtain more wealth. Is it, 
therefore, tl;ie lack of a desire to create wealth that is 
responsible for our present condition ? I think we may 
safely say, that it is neither a lack of opportunity or of 
desire to create wealth that is the trouble with this na- 
tion. It is rather a lack of knowledge of how to direct 
our work and our energies, and distribute their pro- 
ducts. If this proposition is not admitted to be true, 
then we are forced to admit the truth of another propo- 



LABORING MAN. 



9 



sition, and that is, that there must exist some very- 
great wrongs somewhere, and that there are many 
pai'ties guilty of those wrongs. It is not altogether 
improbable that both propositions are at least in part 
true. We do know that there seems to be great differ- 
ences of opinion, concerning the question of the free 
and unlimited coinage of silver, the tariff question, and 
many others, showing conclusively that there is a pos- 
sibility that we may not know just how to direct our 
energies. 

Again we do know, that accusations of the gravest 
character have been made by the highest authority, 
against such trusts as the sugar trust, the oil trust, the 
whiskey trust and many others. We do know w^hat the 
Lexow investigation disclosed. We do know of the 
charges brought against various city governments, and 
what the trials of their officials have disclosed. There- 
fore we are led to believe, that the present undesirable 
state of affairs is due in part, at least, to a lack of 
knowledge of how to direct our energies, as well as to 
great wrongs deliberately perpetrated by designing and 
unscrupulous persons, upon a trustful people. 

We are not willing to admit that our present dis- 
tresses have been unavoidable. Nor are we willing to 
admit that panics are necessary conditions to civiliza- 
tion. The theory that we must have a panic about once 
in twenty years is senseless and false. Panics are the 
outgrowths of certain conditions, brought about, 
mainly, by the violation of moral and economic laws. 
There is nothing supernatural about a panic, but as 
Dr. Francis Way land, late president of Brown Univer- 
sity, said, ''A panic is the turning point wiien the 
revulsion occurs ; when baseless anticipations are dis- 
appointed and mutual confidence gives place to general 
distrust. 



10 EVERY AMERICAN 

If there ever was a time when the voters of this 
nation were called upon to think for themselves, that 
time is now. Loyalty to country and the exercise of 
greatest intelligence, are imperatively demanded of 
each American citizen. The question. • ' what can I do 
for my party," should be changed into --what can I do 
for my country?" The principles upon which this gov- 
ernment rests are founded in the free exercise of indi- 
vidual thought, judgment, conscience and action. The 
closing events of this century as well as have others 
show that the politicions do not go in advance of public 
opinion, but wait sluggishly for the peox)le to pronounce 
themselves, and oftentimes repeatedly, upon all new 
questions of great x^olitical importance, before they will 
comply with the wishes of the people who elect them to 
office. The weight of good government rests upon the 
voters of the land, and the history of a hundred years 
shows that they need not expect to get a desirable new 
thing, or effect any marked reform, until they have 
pronounced themselves emj)hatically and boldly for it. 

Among the great problems of the day, which are up 
for solution, is the liquor traffic j)roblam. Intrenched 
as it is behind law, ignorance, prejudice, and moral de- 
XDravity ; and with millions of dollars of money at its 
command, it forms an obstacle almost insurmountable 
and incalculably dangerous.' In every manner possible 
the liquor men appeal to all classes of people, alike, for 
fellowship and support. Fraud of the darkest char- 
acter is practiced by them on every hand. They go to 
the laboring men, and argue, that inasmuch as they em- 
ploy labor, the effort being made to close up their busi- 
ness is an effort indirectly made against labor, 
and that if such effort were successful labor 
would suffer great losses. My fellow citizen, are 
you a laboring man? If so, allow me to direct 



LABORIGN MAN. 



11 



thoughts to a few 



things 



in this connec- 



yoiir 

tion. Mucli has been said, in the last few years, about 
the unequal and unjust distribution of the wealth which 
labor has created. So far as labor is concerned, wealth 
i J distributed either with, or without its consent. That 
there is an unjust distribution of the products of labor, 
no well informed and candid person will deny. That 
wealth is becoming more and more unequally distrib- 




SCHLOBENSCOFFER, THE BREWER: "I HEAR DEM 
BROHIBITIOXISTS PEEN TRYIN' TO TAKE AVAY YOUR 
BERSOXEL LIBERTIES." 

LABORING MAN, WHO HAS SPENT LARGE SUMS FOR 
BEER: "YOU SEEM TO BE GREATLY INTERESTED IN 
MY WELFARE, MR. SCHLOBENSCOFFER." 

uted is just as apparent, and while we are discussing 
this branch of the labor question, we are not at all 
ignorant of the fact, that corporations, trusts and mon- 
opolies have received an unjust and unequal i)ro- 



12 EVERY AMERICAN 

portion of the products of labor without its consent. 
We appreciate fully the wrongs which labor has suf- 
fered through these agencies. It has suffered them 
much longer than there has been any neces- 
sity for so doing, for it has its remedies. But 
when labor knowingly and voluntarily consents to an 
unjust distribution, who has it but itself to blame if in 
the end it suffers loss ? 

It is my purpose now to consider how much of this 
wealth, which labor has produced, it has voluntarily 
surrendered and thus contributed to its own poverty, 
degradation and distress. What w^e mean by the ex- 
pression (the voluntary distribution of wealth) is the 
voluntary exchange of the products of labor, for that 
which furnishes no power to reproduce anything, satis- 
fies no rational wants, and affords no honorable gratifi- 
cation to the individual. At first blush no one would 
suppose, that a rational human being would so exchange 
the products of his labor. But perhaps the weakness 
of the human race in this respect is a species of 
insanity. 

In his work entitled "An Introduction to Political 
Economy," Prof. R. T. Ely says: "Among the most 
pernicious things which satisfy undesirable wants may 
be mentioned tobacco, opium, intoxicating beverages," 
and he says of these things, that ' ' the most that can be 
claimed for these things, apart from medicinal pur- 
poses is that they do no positive harm to the individ- 
ual's physical well being and that they afford at least a 
temporary solace and tend to sociability. " ' 'This, " says 
one of the greatest economists of the day, ' ' is the best 
that can be said " of those customs and indulgences, over 
which the American people have almost gone mad. 

According to the best estimates the cost of liquor, per 
annum, is now more than 818.00 for each man, woman. 



• LABORING MAN. 13 

and child in this country. (See Cyclopaedia of Temper- 
ance and revenue reports.) If the average family con- 
sists of live persons, as is estimated in the U. S. 
Census of 1890, each family, on an average, would spend 
$^90 annually for strong drink. If a family average 
but four i^ersons for twenty years the total drink bill, 
for that family, would be 81440. That time would cover 
the most useful period of a man's life, that period when 
men have strength to produce, and reason suflicient to 
save it. It would be safe to say, that for the remainder 
of the time a family would remain together, as a family, 
this ratio would swell the amount to a total of 2000 
dollars. We need not add to this the opium or mor- 
phine habits, and other vicious practices to see, that 
under the present social practices, the great mass of 
the people must remain poor. Labor surely furnishes 
its quota of this expense, as will be fully shown hereaf- 
ter. This amount mvist necessarily come out of the 
wages of the laboring man, and it represents the amount 
of the products of his labor which he voluntarily ex- 
changes for that which satisfies ''undesirable wants." 
" For that which is not bread and satisfies not." 

We will give the laboring man credit for first supply- 
ing his family with the necessaries of life. Then we 
will add to this his liquor bill, and deduct the total from 
his year's wages. This will give what he should have 
left and, what he might call accumulated wealth ; and 
which represents his labor in the fi.nal distribution of its 
products. In his work, entitled " The Story of Labor " 
Mr. Powderly shows, by a compilation of statistics, that 
the average wages paid to every man, woman, and 
child, in this country per year is 1^124. We will say 
again that there are five persons in a family, the yearly 
wages for a family would be $620. The same authority 
shows, that the cost of living for each person, on an 



14 EVERY AMERICAN 

average, per year is $110. Multiply this by five, and it 
will give the cost of living for a year, for a family of 
five persons, or $550. This sum includes the liquor bill 
also. By subtracting the cost of living for the total 
wages received, it leaves a sum of $70 in the family 
treasury for recreation, rational pastime, and for relig- 
ious and philanthropic purposes. We can readily see 
that after these expenses are paid there will be little 
left to represent productive labor, that the accumula- 
tion of wealth will never come to the masses through 
such a process. 

Year in and year out the same process goes on, and 
the family account book shows no financial gain, for the 
average family lives up to its income. It lives on the 
very verge of disaster, for it has no reserve fund for an 
emergency. To them the distribution of the products 
of their labor seems to have been made by force. Let 
us see how it is. In the expense account is an item of 
$18 for liquor, for each of the five members of the fam- 
ily, or $90, which sum has not been expended for the 
necessaries of life, nor for the exchange of any really 
useful thing or to satisfy a single desirable want. The 
family has earned $620, and it has spent $530 for neces- 
saries and other rational purposes. It has $90 to dis- 
pose of. The father takes that sum in his hand. What 
shall he do with it ? He has now come to that point in 
real business affairs where he voluntarily distributes 
the products of his labor. Shall he invest it in a lot 
upon which he can build himself a home, that he and 
his family may possess it and enjoy it as something 
tangible and useful, and which shall represent his labor 
in the final distribution of its products, which he, 'him- 
self, has made ? No ; he has not so decided, but takes 
it and with his own hand exchanges it for rum, which 
at the most, furnishes pleasure for himself only, but 



LABORIGN MAN. 



1.-) 



supplies no rational want and affords no righteous grat- 
itication to anyone. 

The only portion of his wages which he could keep 
as a representative of his labor he has voluntarily sur- 
rendered forever to satisfy an irrational desire, the full 
satisfaction of which generally means poverty instead 
of plenty, heartache instead of happiness, and death 
instead of life. Who finally receives the wealth which 







r 



/y 



/x 
X 



VOLUNTARILY DISTRIBUTING THE PRODUCTS OF THER 

LABOR. 

his labor has produced ? It goes first to the saloon 
keeper who keeps a portion of it, then to the wholesaler 
who keeps a portion, and lastly to the whiskey trusts, 
the wine and sj^irits associations, or to the beer brewers 
the delegates of which, at their last annual convention, 
represented over ^00,000,000. 



10 EVERY AMERICAN 

This is not all that may be said of it. Labor is just 
as much entitled to receive interest on its loans as the 
bonafide usurer. Take the liquor bill of the average 
family of five persons, which is ^90 per annum, and put 
the same out at interest, as a business man would, and 
we find that it adds very materially to the laboring 
man's capital. Taking the family liquor bill for twenty 
years, and we find that the first ninety dollars would 
run for nineteen years, the second for eighteen years, 
the third for seventeen years, and so on down the scale, 
as we reach the end of the twenty years, making in all 
nineteen different installments of principal of S90 each, 
bearing interest at six per cent, per annum. "VVe would 
then have $90 running at interest for periods of years 
as follows, viz : nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, 
fifteen, ?tnd so on down, making in all a total of 180 
years. The interest on $90 for one year, at six per 
cent., is equal to 85.40, and for 180 years, the total num- 
ber, the interest would amount to 81026, at simple inter- 
est. If the family should average only four persons for 
twenty years, then we vrould have 8820.80 interest on 
the money s^Dent for liquor in that time, for such a fam- 
ily. This interest added to the sum actually spent, or 
81440, equals 82260.80. This sum represents in dollars 
and cents the possibilities that are within the reach of 
the average drinking man, besides the time which he 
has lest and the disabilities under which he has 
labored. 

'When we come to consider the large number of total 
abstainers in the country we must acknowledge that 
sum altogether too small, for the amount of money 
spent by drinking men must be increased in oider to 
make up for what the total abstainers do not spend. As 
we do not know what proportion of the whole people 
are non-drinkers, we cannot tell what the sum of 



LABORING MAN. 17 

money, actually spent by the drinking classes, each 
year, amounts to per capita. 

For all this waste of opportunity and expenditure of 
the products of hard labor what has labor to show ? 
Nor is this all. While it is true that men own and operate 
breweries, distilleries and saloons, and em^jloy men 
therein, it does not follow (from that) that the business 
is a wise one or profitable to the country, or to those 
who find alivelihoodinits operation. Adam Smith, the 
father of political economy, demonstrated more than a 
century ago, that there were two kinds of labor, pro- 
ductive and unproductive ; and he says of the liquor 
traflic, that " all the labor expended in producing 
strong drink is utterly unproductive ; it adds nothing 
to the wealth of the community." (Temperance Shot 
and Shell.) 

"We know that the man who works in the woolen mill 
is engaged in productive labor, for in such a society 
and climate as ours men and women must have cloth- 
ing, or civilization could not be maintained. So of 
nearly all industries. They all supply some rational 
and desirable want, and satisfy some honorable or 
righteous ambition. 

An eminent economist has said, that the real object 
of all consumption is reproduction. Wheat is sown 
upon the ground apparently to rot but really for 
the purpose of reproducing a manifold harvest, after a 
long dreary winter. We eat the flour made from the 
wheat, today, that we may have strength for the mor- 
row. But the consumption of intoxicating beverages 
gives no additional j^ower to reproduce anything, culti- 
vates no appreciation for the beautiful, gives no refine- 
ment to society, and makes nothing for a man's true 
happiness and welfare. In the language of Adam 
Smith, "it is utterly unproductive." Therefore the 



IB EVERY AMERICAN 

more labor dedicated to the promotion of its interests 
the greater the loss to society. 

There is greater necessity for the wise application of 
sound economic principles, to the character of the em- 
ployment given to labor than to the saving of the money 
received therefrom. Mr. Coxey, while he was engaged 
in what seems to us a foolish attempt to obtain employ- 
ment for the unemployed, did not ask the government 
to set the idle men to throwing pebbles into the ocean, 
but building roads. Throwing pebbles might be work 
for which millions might be paid, but in what manner 
could it help to replenish a treasury which it had de- 
IDleted ? There would certainly be few taxes gathered 
from the taxable wealth which such labor produced. 

Thomas Carlyle said, ' 'What deviltry soever the kings 
may do, the Greeks must pay the piper." When men 
are paid for throwing pebbles into the ocean the equiv- 
alent which the employer gets, for his money, is jDeb- 
bles in the bottom of the ocean. Surely a valuable 
equivalent. What demand can it satisfy ? Pebbles 
thrown to the bottom of the ocean for pay. What can 
they reproduce ? Nothing. Although men may have 
scoured the whole Atlantic and Pacific coasts, at the 
expense of millions of dollars a month and millions of 
hard day's work, reduced to its lowest terms their work 
would amount to nothing. Why ? Because the pro- 
duct of it all will not satisfy desirable wants. It would 
be totally unproductive. A man who would engage 
men in such an occupation might well be looked after 
by the authorities. 

It is claimed by the liquor men that there are 500, 000 men 
engaged in all the branches of the business, receivings 
in wages, annually, the sum of §270,000,000, and jDro- 
ducing a quantity of liquor which retails to the consum- 
ers as beverages at $1,250,000,000. As a business in- 



LABORIGN MAN. 19 

vestment what has society to show for this preat ex- 
penditure of money and labor V Adam Smith says, 
"nothing." J. Stuart Mill says "nothing.'' Plato and 
Aristotle say "nothing. " All the church fathers have 
said the same thing, as well as nearly all of the politi- 
cal economists of later days who were not themselves 
tipplers. Prof. Ely has found more good in it than 
most any other of the modern A\Titers, and the best that 
he could say affirmatively of it was, that ' ' it affords 
temporary solace and tends toward sociability.'' Leav- 
ing out of consideration all moral phases of the ques- 
tion, we have the following equation: 150,000,000 
days' labor+ $;i, 250, 000, 000 direct cost+ $1,250,000,000 in- 
direct loss caused by Us destructive character^" Tem- 
porary solace and tendency toward sociability." That 
is the aimual equation of the liquor traffic. (See "An 
Introduction to Political Economy,'' by R. T. Ely.) 

Some people might sit for hours in the cool shade, 
and watch tlie nimble throwers perforate the huge 
waves with pebbles, or send them skipping over their 
surface, they might twaddle by the hour about it, and 
find " temporary solace and a tendency toward sociabil- 
ity," but, shades of Socrates, what a profitable invest- 
ment it would be for the people ! 

As a nation our resources are large, but there is an 
end even to them. The expenditure of ^1,250,000,000 
for nothing or worse than nothing must be followed by 
disastrous consequences to some body. It is now mani- 
fested every day, for the homeless tramps and starving 
women aiid children, are living examples of its evil 
work. 

Again you might say to me, "I do not drink. How 
can this thing harm me, or be of interest to me 't " 

In the first place there is not an element of patriotism in 
such a position. Reduced to its lowest terms it means 



"20 EVERY AMERICAN 

this : Come what may to my neighbor and my country, 
I will not concern myself about it so long as I can keep 
-clear of it consequences. Such a man is not worthy 



GOOD CITIZEN : " IT IS NOT MY CHILD, SO I AM NOT 
INTERESTED IN IT " — "AND HE PASSED BY ON THE OTH- 

ER SIDE.'' 

the protection of the flag of his country. In such r. 
person there is abundant room for all the sordidness oi 
the race. Such principles are utterly un worthy- of any 
American citizen. I am sure you will agree with me in 
that. 

In the next place the liquor traffic does hurt you 
whether you drink or not. The liquor traffic is a traf- 
fic of distruction. A careful consideration of the fig- 
ures furnished, by the census of 1880 and 1890, dis- 
closes the fact that the loss in time, labor, pauperization, 
crime, etc., through the drink traffic was more than 



LABORING MAN. 21 

equal to the direct expense of the liquor purchased. 
The tendency of late years has been to increase rather 
than to diminish the ration. The indirect loss and des- 
truction of property, life and values caused by the 
liquor traffic is, according to these statistics another 
^1,250,000,000. This will be fully demonstrated as we 
proceed, with the discussion. All, whether drinkers or 
non-drinkers, must contribute to pay for the support of 
the armies of policemen, detectives, lawyers, judges, 
whose chief occupation grows out of the liquor traffic, 
for, as Prof. Ely says, prisons, penitentiaries, insane 
asylums, almshouses, fifty to eighty per cent, of whose 
occupants are the victims, direct or indirect of intem- 
perance ; while all share alike in the loss of industrial 
power that comes from weakened constitutions, dizzy 
heads, and extravagance." If these 500,000 men, of 
whom the liquor men speak so often, as "laboring men/' 
must have a living, and they will not earn it in an hon- 
orable business, then it would be more profitable for us 
to give them the first ^1,250,000,000 outright to stay out 
of the business; and thus enable us to save the second 
§1,250,000,000 which is lost through the indirect cost of 
the liquor traffic. Prof. Ely says, we all have to share 
in the loss which comes from dizzy heads, etc. How 
does that come about you ask? It comes about in just 
this way : The expenses of operating an institution 
must be kept within the amount of its gross receipts, or 
it cannot be maintained. The amount of gross receipts 
depends, to a gi-eat extent, upon the productive power 
of the institution, and its productive power depends to 
an equal extent upon the skill, power and faith- 
fulness of the laboring men employed in it. Intemper- 
ance decreases a laborer's skill, his faithfulness, and 
lessens his power to produce. All of which affects the 
gross receipts of the employer, and lessens his ability 



22 EVERY AMERICAN 

to pay large wages. The shrewd business man, look- 
ing ahead, and seeing that the total output of his insti- 
tution is going to fall below a certain figure, will at 
once endeavor to bring his expenses within his gross 
receipts. If labor is a large item in his expenses it may- 
expect to receive a cut, in proportion to the needs of the 
employer, and the non-drinking man must share with 
the drinking man the loss which has come about through 
no fault of his. 

The labor of drinking men is unprofitable. Any em- 
ployer of experience and good sense, desiring to employ 
a given number of men, would not hesitate an instant in 
choosing between a given number of drinking men and 
non-drinking men of equal experience, power and skill. 
Without any doubt he would take the non- drinkers. 
The tendency to do this has become very marked with 
the great railroad corporations. Nearly all of them are 
exacting abstinence from the use of strong drink both 
when on and oif duty. The necessity for such action 
grew out of such loss of life and destruction of property, 
as is described in the following press dispatch : 

"Chicago, 111., Sept. 25. — Shortly after six o'clock 
last night, the Washington Heights coach stood on the 
corner 87th street and Vincennes avenue, waiting for 
the dummy engine to pull it to its destination. It was 
well within its time, and the signals were out at the 
semaphore. The passengers were horrified to see a 
heavy freight bearing down upon them from behind, 
regardless of the time and signals. The freight engin- 
neer reversed his engine but did not shut off the steam. 
He and the firemen jumped. The next second, with 
almost undiminished speed, the huge engine plunged 
into the passenger coach, until it was completely hidden 
under the wreck. The steam box was broken off, and 
the wreck was enveloped in clouds of scalding vapor. 



LABORING MAN. 



2a 



Terrible groans and screeches told, that the passengers 
were being scalded to death. Everything possible was 
done but it was nearly an hour before the steam sub- 
sided. The dead were found absolutely boiled. As 
they were taken out the flesh dropped from their bones. 
The wreck seems due entirely to the criminal disregard 
of the signals, by the engineer, Seth Trombley, who is 
a son of the master mechanic of the road. He is said to 
be a drinking man. 




WRECKED BY A DRUNKEN ENGINEER IN CHICAGO, SIX 
LIVES LOST AND §25,000 WORTH OF PROPERTY DE- 
STROYED. 

" IT NEVER HURTS ANYBODY THAT LETS IT ALONE." 

The first body to be taken from the wreck was the 
body of Miss Kelley. The steam had so boiled her 
hands and face as to turn the skin a horrible purple, 
and her features were swollen out of all resemblance to 
their former shape. The others were not so badly dis- 
figured, and only one person was cut. Most of them 
had died by inhaling the tremendous cloud of hot steam 
that filled every corner of the car, before the echoes of 
the first terrible crash had died out. 



24 EVERY AMERICAN 

Engineer Trombley was found and arrested this after- 
noon. He was still under the influence of liquor. Per- 
sons who saw the engineer before he left on the train 
say that he had been drinking all the afternoon, that 
when his train had been made up he was so stupid from 
liquor, that he had to be lifted into the cab. " 

Do you wonder that the railroad comjDanies are taking 
steps to weed out the drinking men from their service ? 
Do you wonder that such an order as is described in 
the following X3ress dispatch, should be issued ? 

"Fort Howard, Wis., March 27, 1895.— The St. Paul 
R. R. Company summarily dismissed eleven engineers 
and thirty -five firemen from its division running into this 
city. The cause of this wholesale dismissal is said to 
be due to the men frequenting the saloons when off 
duty, and the recent determination of the company to 
discountenance the practice. This summary dismissal 
of the men, from the service, is likely to have a far- 
reaching effect." The great Nickel Plate company 
recently took the same course with its employes. I 
want to ask you in all candor how a railway company 
can afford to pay large wages, and suffer such losses as 
those referred to ? If they do pay large wages then 
the traveling public must make up for it in increased 
passenger rates, besides submitting to the process of 
being boiled to death. 

In what position in life can a non-drinking man work 
by the side of a drinking man, anyway ? These drink- 
ers clog all the wheels of industry. In an article enti- 
tled "Paying the Piper," an able writer says: "Behind 
every idle drinker waits a procession of men, everyone 
of whom has to stop because that man's work is not 
done. All over the land are sober men waiting with 
idle hands for drunken men to bring up their work ahead 
of them." All lost time must be made up by somebody, 



LABORING MAN. 2»> 

and as the employer has the power to do the adjusting 
it usually results in a cut in wages ; and this is often 
followed by strikes disastrous to employer, employe 
and public alik(\ Just as water seeks its level so will 
these losses linally adjust themselves in losses to 
labor. 

As a matter of fact entirely outside of theory where 
drinking is indulged in at all by any considerable num- 
ber of men, some of them will drink to excess, and it is 
now a well established fact, that drinking men are not 
capable of doing as much nor as good work as non- 
di'inking men. Every spoiled bit of material must be 
accounted in the column of losses. If through this 
waste of materials and loss of productive power, by 
reason of the drinking habits of employes, a manufac- 
turer loses ten per cent. , is it not reasonable to conclude 
that labor will have to suffer her pro rata share of this 
loss in the tinal adjustment which the employer has the 
power to make and will make ? 

Again there is none too much capital in the country, 
if most wisely invested, to give full employment to labor. 
It is not much more important whether money is invest- 
ed than how it is invested, that gives to labor the best 
opportunities. A given amount of power applied to an 
object, through the use of a lever, will lift a much 
greater load than it will without its intervention. It 
takes thousands of dollars of money to deal very ex- 
tensively in precious stones, but how much labor does 
it take to perform the work ? One soap factory with 
one-half the amount of capital would employ twenty-five 
times as many men, and probably more. 

Taking the manufacturing branches of the liquor 
traffic malt, distilled, and vinous, according to the cen- 
sus of 1^90, in 165 cities in the United States reporting, 
and each having a i)opulation of more than 1(),U()<>, and 



26 EVERY AMERICAN 

we find that the capital invested in these three branches 
pays a much smaller sum to labor for the capital invest- 
ed than any other business of importance. In the 186,- 
147 institutions reporting, exclusive of the liquor busi- 
ness, and representing every conceivable kind of indus- 
try, the capital invested in hired property, direct invest- 
ment, and "miscellaneous expenses," amounted to 
$5,029,652,027. This capital employed 2,380,720 em- 
ployes and paid them $1,543,239,891 in wages, or on an 
average of 8648 each. It will be seen that it took a 
capital of $2,200 (in round numbers) to pay 8648 in 
wages, or in other words it paid in wages 29 per cent, 
of the capital invested. According to this census (1890) 
there were $255,011,502 invested in those cities named, 
in the 324 institutions reporting, and rei:)resenting the 
the three lines of the liquor business. These institu- 
tions employed 27,172 men and paid them, in wages, 
$24,204,210. It will be seen that it took about $9,400 in 
capital invested in the liquor business to pay $890 in 
wages, or in other words to pay eight per cent, of the 
capital invested in wages. Thus it will be seen that 
the same amount of capital invested in all the various 
branches of useful business will pay 3^-9 times as much 
wages as it will when invested in the liquor business. 

The publishers of the Cyclopaedia of ' ' Temperance 
and Prohibition " have prepared a table, giving a com- 
parison of the various branches of the liquor industry, 
with special branches of useful business, which we re- 
produce here : 

Name of p Pkrsons Employkd 1'i:ks()N8 Employed 

Industry. k.ai'iiai.. ^^^ yeah. <^m: ykak. 

lihiuor Business $3,504 1. S 448 

Boots and Shoes " 8.6 3,iS7 

Furniture ** 4.6 4.8:37 

iJurpenterinfr " 9.7 1.403 

Brick and Tile " 8.4 1.703 

Carpets ** 3.4 l.i:i> 

Cotton Goods " 3. 7:38 

Woolen Goods " 3.2 942 

Sewins? :Mac-]iines " 2.7 1,299 

Printiii'-'iS: Publishing. " 3.3 1,699 

Worsted Goods " 3.3 fr77 

Airricultural Trapl'm'ts " 2.3 f¥i7 



LABORING MAN. 27 

Thus it will be seen that these industries will, on an 
average, employ 4.7 times as many men, with the same 
amount of capital, and pay them more money in wages 
for the year. 

Again by the use of another table, we are able to see 
that it requires much more money to be spent by the 
consumers, to afford the same amount of employment in 
the liquor business, than it does in the useful lines of 
business. 

The following is a table prepared from the statistics 
found in the census reports of 1890, comjDaring ten of 
the necessaries of life with alcoholic liquors : 



DiSTiL,T.ED Number 
Liquors. Keported. 


Employes. 


Wages ,,f^"«5TOF 
\vACE!s. Materials. 


Value of 
Product. 


Distilled Liquors .... 440 


.5,;343 


$ 2.184.889 


SI 4. 909. 173 


$104,197,869 


Malt Liquors 1,348 

Vinous Liquors 236 


■S4.m 


28.:382.r>44 


64.003.347 


182.731.622 


1,282 


480.731 


1.318.012 


2.846.148 


Leather Goods 139 


3,074 


1.464.124 


2,988.747 


5.578.428 


Lumber & other prod 21.011 
Mill prod, sash, doors 3,670 


216,197 


87.784.433 


2:31,.V>;i,618 


403.667.575 


86,888 


48,970.080 


104.926,834 


183.681,r>52 


Mattreses & springs. 696 


7,3:^7 


3,660.297 


8,727,380 


15,68:3.932 


Refrigerators 83 


2,373 


1,232. 7(>.5 


2,377,9.)8 


4,513,616 


Rubber, elastic, etc.. 139 


9.802 


4.516.266 


ll,113.o28 


18.708,917 


Ship building 1.010 


2.5.9;^ 


16.028.847 


16.92.1,109 


40.:i42.115 


Worsted goods 143 


4;i.o93 


11.880.183 


50.706.769 


79.194.(i.>2 


Woolen goods 1,311 


79.:iil 


28.478.931 


82.270.:ii) 


1:33.577.977 


Boots and shoes 2.082 


139.33:3 


66,37r),876 


118.78.->.831 


220,619.3;'>8 



By dividing the value of the amount of the product, 
in each industry, by the number of men employed, the 
result will be the amount of money necessarily expend- 
ed, by the consumer, in order to furnish employment 
for one laborer. The following table gives the com- 
parison showing the disadvantages to labor, from the 
consumption of alcoholic liquors instead of other things : 
Distilled liquors, 119,501 expended by the consumer to 
furnish employment for one man for a year. Malt 
liquors, $5,250. Vinous liquors, $2,220. Leather goods, 
$1,814. Lumber and other mill products, $1,406. Mill 
products including sash and doors, $2,115. Mattresses 
and bed springs, $2,136. Eefrigerators, $1,927. Rub- 



28 EVERY AMERICAN 

ber and elastic goods, $1,908. Ship building, $1,555. 
Worsted goods $1,816. Woolen goods, $1,683. Boots 
and shoes, $1,009. 

By putting the three branches of the liquor traffic 
together, it will be seen, that it requires the expendi- 
ture of $8,990, by the consumers of those products, on 
an average, in order to furnish employment for one man 
for a given length of time. By combming the other ten 
industries in the same way, it is found that it requires, 
on an average, but $1,736 expended by the consumers of 
those products, to furnish employment for one man for 
the same length of time. It will be readily seen, that 
in order to furnish employment for men, in the manu- 
facture of liquor, it will make a burden 5.17 times as hard 
to bear, by the consumers, than it will in the useful 
branches of business. The lesson which it teaches is 
this : If laboring men wish employment they should, 
themselves, patronize other industries than saloons 
and encourage others to do the same. 

If there was ever a class of persons who should be 
interested in the promulgation of temperance principles, 
for purely business reasons, it is the laboring 'classes. 
We saw, in the tables of comparison between capital in- 
vested in the liquor business and that which is invested 
in useful business, that it requh^ed 3 ^.g times as much 
capital invested in the liquor business, in order to em- 
ploy a given number of men, as it did in other 
branches of business. Taken together, then, the bur- 
den to capital and consumers is 8. 77 times as great to 
support labor in the liquor business as it is to support 
it in any of the rational and honest businesses of life. 
With the same amount of money spent for the useful 
things of life, it would furnish employment for 2,585,000 
men, whereas it now furnishes employment for 500,000 
men. 



LABOKIN'G iMAX. 



29 




MR. LEGWEARY: "WHICH ONE OF THESE SHALL WE 
PATRONIZE ? " 

MR. BORXTIRED: "LET'S PATRONIZE THE SALOON, 
FOR WITH THE SAME AMOUNT OF CAPITAL AND PATRON- 
AGE IT FURNISHES ONLY - 17 AS MUCH WORK FOR US 
TO DO." 



The operation of the liquor traffic is a positive hin- 
drance to the full employment of men. The establish- 
ment of that fact will furnish food for pleasant 
reflection to none save the tramp who always calls for a 
free lunch, at the place where there is no dog and no 
wood to split. 

Again much has been said of late concern- 
ing female and child labor. Committees, represent- 
ing various societies, have investigated this matter, 
and have found some alarming conditions. Many 
women and children have been found doing the work 



30 EVERY AMERICAN 

men ought to do, but working for smaller wages, simply 
because they were women and children. How came 
this woman and child labor in the market? We are 
told by the wiseacres, when speaking of equal suffrage, 
that the place for these is at home attending to the 
household. Much eloquence is expended upon the sub- 
ject of woman's place in society, and the theoretical 
home, etc. Why do not these said wiseacres figure her 
way for her into that home out of the glutted markets 
of labor, giving the field over to men ? No woman can 
build a typical home, and at the same time fight, in the 
factories and sweat shops, for bread for herself and 
starving children. 

Rev. J. C. Fernald, in his leaflet on "A Destructive 
Industry," has given us a few thoughts well worth our 
consideration. He says : ' ' Anyone knows what the 
home may be to the man in life's rough toils and con- 
flicts, to childhood that it may grow to humanity's full 
promise, knows that it is a life work for any woman to 
make such a home. The trouble is, as Mrs. Diaz says, 
that ' doing her best there is not enough of her to go 
around. ' Now no human being can do two life-works 
in one lifetime. If home is to be what it ought to be, 
woman must give her life to it. If she gives her life to 
something else home will not be what it ought to be. 
The prevalence of intemperance drives thousands of 
married women to just this. The husband's drinking 
destroys the family income, and the wife does 
the only thing left her to repair it, by leaving the work 
she ought to do and doing the work which belongs to 
him. Her presence in the labor market brings down 
the price of all of her sisters, and some of her brothers. 

''Take out of competition all of the married 
women, and all those young girls, too, who but for the 
waste and poverty caused by intemperance, would find 



LABORING MAN. 31 

their sup]X)rt and congenial work in happy homes, and 
the price and conditions of woman's work would at once 
unprove. Tlie demand for womanly labor would in- 
crease at the same time the present over supply was 
reduced. Scarcely any business makes so small use of 
woman's labor as the liquor business. This is as it 
should be. God save us from the foreign 'barmaid' 
system. But spend the money now absorbed in the 
liquor business in dry goods, boots and shoes, clothing, 
and other productive industries, and you will open a 
multitude of new doors for congenial womanly work. 

According to census of 1880, we find in liquor manu- 
nfactnre : Male employes, 33,334; female, 96; product, 
J{>144,:291,241 (wholesale price). In the manufacture of 
boots and shoes : Male employes, 106,259; female, 28,- 
194; product, .s207, 3^^7,903. Of clothing: Male em- 
ployes, 79,-^49; female, 103,247; product, §241,553,254. 
A similar state of things might be shown in other occu- 
pations. And opening this wider demand for womanly 
labor would also relieve the pressui-e upon the labor 
market. 

" And the children, whom it makes one's heart ache 
to see struggling into the crush of toil when they should 
be in the nui'sery, or the school room, how will prohibi- 
tion benefit these child workers ? Why, by making 
I hem cease to be wage workers, taking them out of the 
labor market altogether. One of the keenest observers 
in Elngland has said : ' The child ragged and ill used is 
ever the drunkard's child.' In a majority of these 
cases, it is the intemperance of one or both of the par- 
ents, that throws children upon their ovra slender earn- 
inirs for a livlihood." 

>; an example of how this drink trafiic affects the 
hoiao and the children, i wish to quote from the oflical 
utterances of Judge Chapin, of the recorder's court of 



32 EVERY AMERICAN 

the city of Detroit, in a charge delivered to some saloon 
keepers who had been arrested for Sunday violation, 
and quoted in the Michigan Christian Advocate, of 
Feb. 9, 1895. He says : "Another melancholy condi- 
tion the cause of which I have taken some pains to 
ascertain, is the fact that many laboring men spend 
their weekly earnings in the saloons on Sunday. It is 
truly pathetic to see poor women with their little babes 
upon their arms, going to the poor commissioners for 
bread, many of whom would be amply provided for if 
their husbands spend their Sundays with their families, 
instead of spending their money in the saloons." 

A decent, self respecting woman will neither steal nor 
starve if she can find work, and if forced to a condition 
of starvation and poverty, into the market for labor she 
will go, with no price set upon her labor at all. With 
her it is either do or die. The chief element in her 
competition is the wolf at the door of her humble cot- 
tage. Is this the kind of competition that the laboring 
men of this generation want ? If so, they have only to 
patronize the saloons and help to build up their busi- 
ness, in order to secure it to themselues to the fullest 
satisfaction. 

No doubt at all Judge Chapin, situated as he is, and 
having cognizance of the liquor cases, is acquainted 
with many cases similar to the one described in the fol- 
lowing clipping, taken from the Detroit Evening News 
of March 1, 1895 : "Dan McGuegan is a proud speci- 
men of manhood, according to the testimony of Patrol- 
man Borneman in the police court this morning. The 
officer stated that McGuegan, who had been in Canada 
for the past two or three years, turned up at the home 
of his wife and children on Franklin street, last . night. 
The poor woman supports herself and six children, by 
working out four days in the week, and also receives a 



LABORING MAN. 



33 



little assistance from the poor commission. The oldest 
of the children is about thirteen years old. McGuegan, 
aft«r making himself very disagreeable around the 
house, took a pair of shoes belonging to his little four- 
year-old daughter and pawned them, at a saloon 
for a glass of whiskey. He was loaded when he 
first showed up at the house, and after he got the extra 
drink purchased with the shoes, his condition became 
more beastly. He returned to the house, and when the 
officers arrested him was lying in the middle of the 
floor, in a drunken slumber. The officer stated that 
Mrs. McGuegan had told him, that before Dan left her 




COMPETITTOX 



WHAT WILL SHE WORK FOR." 



34 EVERY AMERICAN 

two years ago, he pawned nearly every scrap of furni- 
ture they had for drink. He was fined 85 or thirty 
days." 

What rate of wages do you suppose that woman 
would work for, with those six little children depending 
upon her for support ? Where must the price of labor 
go with such competition in the labor market as that ? 
What /orcecZ her into the labor market, anyway ? What 
was it that took the last pair of shoes from her babe, 
thiough the hand of her drunken husband, and forced 
her into the labor market to earn more when she should 
have been at home training her children up to true and 
loyal citizenship ? Do we need to ring up Socrates to 
find out ? 

One cannot visit even the smallest hamlet without 
finding just such conditions prevailing on all sides. 
Here is another account wkich comes from Grand Rap- 
ids, Mich. , to the Detroit Evening News : ' ' Mrs. John 
McGowan, the wife of a worthless husband, doing busi- 
ness as a plasterer, had 815 hidden away at their home, 
83 Spring street, last week, to provide for necessities. 
Last Friday, McGowan, who had been drunk for a week 
or more, and had spent all of his valuable assets, hap- 
pened to see the money and pounced upon it. The 
woman had earned it herself by washing and scrubbing, 
and when the little sum left the house hope fled with it. 
The brutal husband spent it all for drink, and the poor 
woman was driven nearly frantic. There w^as no food 
in the house, and she and the children would have 
starved had she not been able to borrow a few cents 
from other people in the tenement. Yesterday after- 
noon despair seized her. She managed to borrow fif- 
teen cents, and going to the nearest drug store, pur- 
chased morphine. At about seven o'clock she was 
seized with convulsions, and but for the timely aid 



LABORING MAN. ".) 

would have died. Tlie city physician treated her effect- 
ively and she -was soon well again. The two children 
of the couple ai)pear to be bright and w^ell trained, and 
the woman is undoubtedly hard working and industri- 
ous. Charitable people can find a good field for w^ork, 
as their resources are limited." The wives of drunken 
husbands, with their little children and themselves to 
support, are in no x)osition to take a stand for high 
wages. It is "do or die " with them. There is no price 
set upon their labor. They work for w^hat they can 
get. 

Anyone who has any knowledge of the records of the 
courts wiiich have jurisdiction over divorce cases, 
knows, that a large percentage of these cases originate 
in drink. The w^riter once searched the records of the 
court of chancery, for the County of Livington, Michi- 
gan, to ascertain what per centage of the divorce cases 
grew out of the use of liquor. The county is what 
might be called a temperance county, having carried 
the prohibitory amendment in 1887, by a majority of 
1,000 out of a total vote 4,500. The investigation cov- 
ered a period of ten years of record. From the bills 
filed and evidence adduced in the cases, together with 
the w^riter's own personal knowledge of the cases, it 
was found that more than 33 per cent, of the cases 
originated, in whole or in part, in strong drink. 

In an article on the subject of divorce, published in 
the "Cyclopaedia of Temperance," by Mr. S. W. Dike, 
the writer shows, that in 29,665 cases of divorce select- 
ed from 45 counties, in twelve representative states, 
where drunkenness is a cause for divorce, 20. 1 per cent. 
of them were due dh-ectly or indirectly to intemper- 
ance. 

In looking up these cases one becomes aware of the 
fact, that there is no sure way of ascertaining the real 



36 EVERY AMERICAN 

extent of the responsibility of intemperance in them. In 
most of states desertion or abandonment is a cause for 
a divorce. The statutes of these states make a deser- 
tion, ranging from two to five years, ground for divorce. 
In those cases all that the complainant need allege and 
prove is that he or she has been deserted for that period 
of time — deserted according to the meaning of the stat- 
ute. Intemperance may have been the prime cause of 
it all, and yet the records would disclose no evidence of 
it. And so it is with the ground of non- support. Out- 
side of the stereotyped allegation, that ' ' he spends the 
most of his time and money with his boon companions, 
to the utter neglect of your oratrix," there need be no 
averment that the defendant is a drunkard, or that in- 
temperance has had anything to do with it. The same 
is true of the grounds of adultry. A broad knowledge 
of domestic relations will afford more real understand- 
ing concerning the causes of divorce, than any 
inquiry into the records of the courts. What the rec- 
ords do show is enough to convert any lover of home to 
the principles of total abstinence, and to make every 
true friend of labor an opponent of the liquor traffic. 

In the preamble to the constitution of the Knights of 
Labor is expressed the sentiment of the great body of 
labor organizations, concerning the accumulation of the 
products of labor in the hands of the few. It is ex- 
pressed as follows : ' ' The alarming development and 
aggressiveness of great capitalists and corporations, 
unless checked, will inevitably lead to the pauperiza- 
tion and hopeless degeneration of the toiling masses. 

"It is imperative, if we desire to enjoy the full bless- 
ings of life, that a check be placed upon unjust accu- 
mulation, and the power for evil of aggregated 
wealth. 



LABORING MAN. 37 

*' We declare to the world, that our aims are ; 1. To 
make industrial and moral worth the true standard of 
individual and national greatness. 

*' To secure to the workers the full enjoyment of the 
wealth they create ; sufficient leisure in which to devel- 
op their intellectual, moral, and social faculties ; all of 
the benefits, recreations and pleasures of the associa- 
tion; in a word, to enable them to share the gains and 
honors of advancing civilization." 

This is indeed a lofty declaration of objects and aims, 
and, coming from the great common people, if it had 
had a practical following, its influence would have been 
felt far more than it has, in the time which has elapsed 
since the order was organized. 

The great laboring classes do not seem to be aware of 
the fact that, through nearly every movement of the 
human body, and thi'ough nearly every effort of the hu- 
man mind, wealth is distributed, and that it can be dis- 
tributed just as effectually, and far more disastrously 
to them, through the liquor traffic, than through the 
national banks or through the railroad corporations. 
The national banks have given us loans, though 
they may have been guilty of usury. The rail- 
road corporations have given us employ- 
ment, but they may not have given us equitable 
wages. They did furnish quick and delightful trans- 
portation, but they may have charged too much for its 
services. But the saloon took the representative of man's 
labor, and in return gave him poison. It gave him not 
employment, but glutted his market for labor. It gave 
him empty pleasure and his family stripes and curses. 
It stepped in before him, and by false pretenses, robbed 
him of a fair distribution of the products of his toil, and 
^rave it to the most audacious autocrats and gigantic 
swindlers of the age, the great whiskey trust, and beer 



38 EVERY AMERICAN 

brewing monopolists of the United States. It took from 
him his home and gave him in return the highway. It 
took from him credentials from the great schools of in- 
dustry, and mustered him without examination into the 
great army of tramjDS. It took from his country a sov- 
ereign citizen and gave back to it an imbecile slave. A 
great friend, indeed, it is to labor and liberty. 

Through this channel the final distribution of the pro- 
ducts of labor with the great mass of laboring men is, 
to too large an extent, made. The necessaries of life 
must be had, for life must be maintained. What is left 
if the cost of living has been paid, and other rational 
desires have been gratified, can be counted, if he has 
not been limited by force or fraud, his proportionate 
share of the wealth which his labor has created. This 
is the surplus which he should lay by, and speaking of 
the average man, it is the only surplus which he can 
lay by. This is the surplus obtained day by day, by 
mental or physical labor, which the liquor traffic has 
intrenched upon until there are millions of homeless 
on the one hand, and millionaire distiller's enough, on 
the other, to at least make themselves powerfully felt 
in the congress of the United States. (See ' ' Our Coun- 
try," by Josiah Strong, page 131.) 

Nearly every dollar possessed by this whiskey trust, 
represents what should now be the surplus or capital of 
which labor should have the major part, but w^hich it 
has almost wholly surrendered to others with its own 
hands. 

If the w^hole wealth of this country were to be equally 
distributed among the men, women and children of this 
country, share and share alike there would be for each 
only about 81000. If the average person drinks $18 
worth of liquor annually, he would consume his propor- 
tionate share of the wealth of this country in 55 years, 



LABORING MAN. 39 

in liquor. How, then, I ask can the drinking men of 
this country expect to own their homes, or have an 
«qual distribution of the wealth of the land, and contin- 
ue to live as they have been living ? The great mass of 
drinking men must either change their mode of living, 
or be tenants or tramps. The only surplus which they 
could ]x)ssibly create, with which to buy a home, has 
gone nickle by nickle into the tills of the liquor traffic, 
and their proportionate share of the wealth of the world 
has been reduced to froth. Until men can make whis- 
key or beer take the place of bread and clothing they 
must either cease to drink liquor, or else sleep in other 
men's homes, or on the earth's cold bosom. 

The prosperity of any people does not depend much 
more upon their power to produce than it does upon 
their ability to save. It is the little surplus w^hich the 
many have accumulated that makes the real prosperity 
of any people. Any nation of people who consume 
daily their full wages, and have no surplus to fall back 
upon in case of an emergency is in imminent danger of 
disaster. With them a sudden change in the adminis- 
tration of government, whereby a change in some finan- 
cial or other public policy becomes probable, or if such 
change is made and the wheels of commerce temporarily 
stop for readjustment, or in case of a general strike of 
some duration of time, or the temporary glutting of the 
market for the products of labor causing the temporary 
closing of the factories, a great business depression or 
panic is almost sure to follow. It is so, because with 
such a people, when labor stops the ability to buy for 
•consumption stops with it. When consumption stops, 
factories and the w^heels of commerce stop also, for they 
move according to the law of supply and demand. As 
these things stop, labor stops more generally with them 
^s the depression advances, and it does not cease until 



40 EVERY AMERICAN 

a readjustment of affairs takes place, or the cause has 
been removed. 

During these times of anti-monopoly sentiment among 
the people, it seems like a very strange thing, that 
while the labor assemblies rightly denounce trusts and 
combinations which, in an artificial way, increase the 
price of their commodities and shut out competition, they 
have no open denouncements, at least, against the great 
whiskey trusts and beer monopolies. And yet these 
trusts and monopolies are chiefest among such robbers. 
Let us study them for a moment. 

Fifteen and twenty years ago, when farm labor was 
much higher than it is today, and wheat brought three 
times and corn twice as much, when all labor was 
higher, and before labor saving machinery came so 
generally into use, whiskey cost only ten cents a glass. 
Today, with its raw materials reduced in price two and 
three fold, and the cost of labor at least one-fourth, the 
price of a glass of whiskey is the same as it was twenty 
years ago. The same thing is practically true of beer. 
They are the only things now purchased by the laboring- 
men, that have maintained such a ratio. In this way 
these trusts have filched from the producers of this 
country millions of dollars which, if their deadly com- 
modities had been blessings instead, they would not 
have been justified in doing. Like all other vicious 
businesses relative values to it are unknown. 

We have thus far been speaking of this matter in a 
general way, we will now give some practical examples 
of its workings and effects. We will take some cities 
where the people depend largely upon their factories 
and mines for a livelihood. In the winter of 1893 and 
1894, the governor of the State of Michigan called upon 
the people of the State to send provisions to the starv- 
ing people of the northern towns, including the towns of 



LABORING MAN. 41 

Ironwood and Bessemer. Many carloads of provisions 
were sent. Turn to the Michigan State Gazetteer for 
1893, and we find that Ironwood has a population of 
7,745, and she has 54 saloons, saying nothing about 
drug stores and joints, or one saloon to every 143 peo- 
ple. Bessemer has a population of 3,200, and 29 saloons, 
or one saloon for every 110 people. 

It is estimated, that each saloon will annually take in 
at least $3,000 over its bars. If that is a correct esti- 
mate, and it is probably a low one, then Ironwood spent 
$162,000 that year for grog, or $105 for each family of 
five persons. In Bessemer every family of five persons 
spent $135 for grog. Enough to have kept them from 
starving if they had not done more than one day's work 
in a week, on an average, for the whole year. Out of 
their degradation and miserable poverty, brought upon 
themselves by their own wrongful conduct and the foul 
practices of ignorant and vicious grog sellers, they cried 
for bread to the hard working, frugal, self-sacrificing 
and philanthropic people whom they had denounced as 
fanatics, and through whose abstemious habits they 
were to be saved from starvation. This may seem in- 
credible, but I refer you to the State Gazetteer, pub- 
lished by R. L. Polk for proof. Do we need an investi- 
gating committee appointed by congress to tell us what 
the trouble with these people was ? 

In the Detroit Free Press of April 26, 1894, and in the 
first column of the fifth page, there is an article headed 
as follows: "They demand bread. Iron Mountain's 
unemployed in a starving condition. They parade the 
streets behind a red flag. Mayor Crowell asks aid from 
Governor Rich. The destitution at the present time is 
terrible, and in every miner's home aid is urgently 
needed. It is feared there will be bread riots, and many 
stores will be looted. The city itself can do nothing, as 
its treasury is empty." 



LABOKl.NG MAN. 43 

Afiraiu turn to the State Gazetteer and you will find 
iliat the city has a i)opulation of 9,500 people, and it 
has 46 saloons, to say nothing of the drug stores and 
joints, upon wliich it expends annually Jtr'loHjOOO, or 175 
for each family of five persons, to say nothing of other 
;id practices. These are facts, not fancies. Where 
was the surplus that should have been saved for this 
rainy day ? Answer: " In the tills of the saloons of 

on Mountain. " They had tried this license plan for 
many years, both as a measure for restricting its sale 
and for revenue purposes. The result was telegraphed 
to the whole world in these words : " IT IS FEARED 
THAT THERE WILL BE BREAD RIOTS. THE 
CITY ITSELF CAN DO NOTHING, AS ITS TREAS- 
URY IS EMPTY." 

We call your attention to these things, believing that 
you are interested in the welfare of the wealth pro- 
ducers of the land. I w^ant to call your attention fur- 
ther to the fact, that this traffic had taken from the 
hand of labor its proper share of the w^ealth w^hich it 
had created, and in its stead had placed the staff upon 
which was flaunted the red flag. 

There has much been said of late concerning taxation, 
i lid under our mode of indirect taxation, the unj ust amount 

hich is placed upon labor. Of all unjust species of 
taxation, now made, none is so exorbitant and outrag- 
eous as that placed upon liquor, which the consumer 
has to pay. I say this in view of the fact, that the 
United States government taxes liquor for revenue, and 
not for police purposes. The government tax alone is 
nine times the value of the raw material used in the 
manufacture of distilled spirits, and three times the cost 
of producing it. Now, if liquor is a food and its use 
proper and right, as is now claimed by its advocates, 
then we submit that the present rate of taxation, both 



44 EVERY AMERICAN 

State and National, is a travesty upon justice and an 
outrage upon consumers. The vast sums of money- 
realized in this manner, of course relieves capitalists 
from taxation, and places it upon the consumers, and 
the millionaire now has the satisfaction of seeing the 
police power of the nation brought out, to protect him, 
in what labor advocates believe to be an unjustifiable 
and wrongful course of conduct when at the same time 
the laboring masses themselves, through the liquor tax 
system, foot the bills. This is the just distribution of 
the products of labor with a vengeance. 

We do not care what the secret intentions of those 
laws were; whether intended for police measures or not. 
The general government taxes it for revenue purposes, 
at least, and it is generally believed by the great mass 
of drinkers, and this belief has been inculcated by the 
very politicians who made the laws, and who now really 
maintain them, that it is their personal and inalienable 
right to drink liquor. I say, that in view of these facts 
it is an outrage upon ignorant consumers to compel 
them, through this specious way, to pay the taxes which 
the wealth of this country should pay. Through this 
miserable fraud practiced on confiding subjects, this gov- 
ernment is making the poor poorer and the rich richer — 
the most dishonorable class of rich — though it may be 
done through the voluntary acts of men. It can hardly 
be said to be a voluntary act, for there is so much of 
fraud in it. What a scandalous piece of fraud it is to 
berate prohibitionists, because they would suppress the 
traffic entirely, in the interest of the public good ; to 
talk to the poor man about its being the "poor man's 
beverage," and that the saloon is "the poor man's club 
house," etc., etc.; to appeal to him for support because 
they are protecting his "personal liberties," and be- 
cause they are " opposed to sumptuary laws," when at 



LABORING MAN. 



45 



I ho samo moiiuMit ihey know that they are taxing " his 
l>everage" ^1.10 a gallon on one kind, and ^1 a barrel 
1 m another, to supix)rt the general government, besides 
making him help pa}' a tax of $-5 and $^500 for the priv- 
ilege of having a place where he can get it. Poor man's 
beverage, indeed ! How very carefully they guard his 




POLITICIAN : 
HOUSE." 



THE SALOON IS THE POOR MAN'S CLUB 



interests, and how vigilant they are to protect his 
rights against his enemies, the temperance *' fanatics" 
who have lifted him out of the gutter many times after 
these men have kicked him in. A strange thing it seems 
to be, that the very men who have declared themselves 
against "sumptuary laws ",for " personal liberty;" and 
who went to victory with those declarations emblazened 



46 EVERY AMERICAN 

upon their banners, should, in one of their first official 
acts, add 20 cents tax, on a gallon, to one of the ' ' poor 
man's beverages." We suppose that is intended to 
** restore confidence. " 

Again, if labor is suffering great wrongs, how may 
they be righted ? After one of the m.ost determined 
efforts, through the strike method, and with the fullest 
sympathy of nearly all the labor unions, the American 
Railway Union was defeated. Its chief officer, E. V. 
Debbs, then declared that their remedy was at the bal- 
lot box. That announcement has met the approval of 
the public. The situation, then, is, that the laboring 
men have grievances and that they must go to the bal- 
lot box for redress. Through its wanderings thus far, 
labor has had this liquor serpent forever in its path. 
She seeks her last resort, the ballot box, only to find 
the hydra head protruding from the lid, so that an hon- 
est ballot and a fair count cannot be had. An eastern 
educator. Prof. McCook, writing for The Forum, took 
five of the princixDal cities of his state, Connecticut, and 
showed by them beyond any doubt, that there is an 
alarming proportion of voters who are venal — several 
times as many as are necessary to hold the balance of 
power between the political parties, and who are drink- 
ers and under the influence of the saloons. A large 
number of men, w^hich labor will have to depend upon 
to go to the polls saloon subsidized and with a venal 
vote in their hands. 

Saloons are not run for love or patriotism, but for 
money. Whoever will give them the most money and 
protection will get their services, for they are without 
honor, so say the churches, both Protestant and Cath- 
olic, Masons, Odd Fellows, Pythians, Maccabees, For- 
esters, Woodmen, etc. The trusts and corporations 
possess the money and have use for the purchasable 



LABORING MAN. 4/ 

votf^r. Without Prof. McCook's disclosure, who is there 
so ignorant as not to know where the saloon "influence" 
will bo thrown when it comes to final settlement between 
labor and capital, and when capital shall choose to make 
a practical investment of her money for campaign pur- 
poses ? Labor is pressing forward toward the polls to 
settle her differences with capital. The saloon is al- 
ready " dipping its hand in the dish" with labor, and 
before the final struggle is over it will betray her, and 
unless it shall also possess the power of hypnotizing its 
victim, labor will yet discover in it the betrayer. 

We call the attention of the labor leaders to the liquor 
traffic as a factor in their struggle. It is the " Hessian " 
of their revolution. 

The liquor traffic is demoralizing to the great mass of 
laboring men. T. V. Powderly, ex-Grand Master- 
workman of the Knights of Labor, said, ' ' one of the 
reasons why labor organizations have failed in the past 
is because the leaders did not have the manhood to de- 
nounce liquor, as a curse." P. M. Arthur, Chief of 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, said : ' ' If it 
were not for the saloons, do you know, I think that 
seven-tenths of the working men would have their own 
homes, in.stead of paying rent. Rum is at the bottom 
of the whole trouble." P. T. Barnum, the great showman, 
traveler and observer, said : ' ' I have built numerous 
houses for moderate drinking workingmen on condition 
that they would become tee-totalers, and they have af- 
terward paid for them with the money and extra 
strength gained thereby." Cardinal Manning said: "If 
we could make the English workingman a total abstain- 
er we could settle the most serious of social problems, 
that confront us now." 

Of the police reports of several cities we select the 
police reports for the city of Grand Rapids, Mich., a 



48 EVERY AMERICAN 

city of about 100,000 inhabitants and a remarkably well 
governed city. Out of the whole number of arrests, 
1,794 for the year 1894, there were 653 cases of drunken- 
ness and 235 cases of various kinds of disorderly con- 
duct, growing almost wholly out of intemperance. And 
out of the 1,794 persons arrested, 1,318 were laboring 
men engaged in the usual trades, not including the pro- 
fessions, saloon business, mercantile business, peddlers 
or clerical workers. In other words these engaged in 
manual labor furnished 73.4 per cent, of the whole num- 
ber of arrests, and one-half of them were plain drunks 
and disorderlies. 

The police reports for Cincinnati, for 1894, show that 
there were made 15,394 arrests for that city, for the 
year. An examination into the character of the offence 
committed by those arrested shows that, out of the 
whole number of arrests 4,761 were for drunkenness and 
disorderly conduct. Of the whole number 4,606 were 
foreign born. 

Taking those engaged in distinctively manual labor, 
exclusive of actors and actresses (of which there were 
2,104) agents, artists, attorneys, ball players, bar-keep- 
ers, book-keepers, brewers, butchers, clerks, dentists, 
doctors, druggists, grocers, harlots, (of which there 
were 907) horse-traders, hucksters, managers, operators, 
and deducting 1,271 of those whose occupations were 
unknown, from the whole number of arrests, we find 
that more than 63 per cent, of the arrests made were 
those who were distinctively laboring men. 

A like examination of the police reports of the city of 
Pittsburg for the year 1894, shows 13,762 persons ar- 
rested, and out of that number 8,846 arrests were made 
for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, or 64 per cent. 
Taking out all classes of persons not actually engaged 
in manual labor as in the previous case, and we find 



LABORING MAN. 49 

that 95 per cent, of the whole number of arrests were 
for laboring men. Of the total number arrested 4,483 
were born in foreign countries ; 12,354 were males ; 
10,-15 were single; 12,752 were white persons, and 13,- 
413 could read and write. 

A like examination of the reports of the city of Den- 
ver shows, that out of the whole number of 9,748 persons 
arrested for the year 1894, 5,957 were distinctively la- 
boring men. Taking out of the whole number the 2,698 
arrests of persons of unknown occupation, and we find 
that 80 per cent, of all arrests were of laboring men. 
The per cent, of arrests for drunkenness and disorderly 
-conduct, for that city for that year, was 51. Of the 
total number arrested 5,844 were native born and 3,904 
were foreign born. 

For the city of St. Louis, for the year 1894, 49 per 
cent, of all arrests were for drunk and disorderly con- 
duct, and out of the total number of 18,987 male persons 
arrested for the violation of both city and State laws, 
13,121 of them were distinctively laboring men of known 
occupations. Taking out of the whole number the 
2,482 persons of unknown occupations, we find 79 per 
cent, of all persons of known occupation arrested were 
laboring men. Of the 5,867 women arrested 4,043 were 
"harlots." 

In the city of Detroit, for the year ending July 1, 1895, 
there were 7,050 arrests for drunkenness and disorderly 
conduct and for violation of the liquor laws, or 60 per 
■of the whole number of arrests. There were also 7,594 
persons of known occupation, which are distinctively 
laboring or "working people," arrested out of 10,073 
persons of known occupation This makes 75 per cent. 
•of the whole number of persons, of known occupation 
arrested, distinctively laboring people and in all prob- 



50 EVERY AMERICAN 

ability 60 per cent of this number was for drunkenness 
and disorderly conduct. 

Take the city of Chicago, for the year 1894, and from 
her police reports we find, that 56 per cent, of all ar- 
rests made were for drunkenness and disorderly con- 
duct. There were made 56,516 arrests of persons of 
some known occupation, and of this number there were 
made 42,930 arrests of distinctively laboring men, or 75 
-per cent, of all persons whose occupations were 
known. 

It will be seen, that if this ratio holds true with refer- 
ence to drunkenness as it does with crune generally, 
fully 75 per cent, of all persons arrested for drunken- 
ness are laboring men. This would seem to indicate the 
proportion of drinking done by the different classes of 
people. Why is it not a fair criterion V 

The term laborer has a broad meaning, and properly 
includes all persons who are engaged in earning a liveli- 
hood, either by mind or muscle. But in this reckoning 
we have excluded all classes who do not earn a livelihood 
by muscular labor, and who are not classed among the 
laborers, as "laborers," by the workingmen them- 
selves. 

From what we have thus far discovered, it would 
seem that 75 per cent, of the $1,250,000,000, annually 
spent for drink, comes out of the laboring classes, or 
the enormous sum of 8937,500,000. In ten years, at 
this rate, there would be the coUossal sum of ^9,375,- 
000,000 spent by the working classes for drink. That 
sum would build 6,250,000 homes for themselves worth 
$1,500 each, or furnish homes with warranty deeds for 
the same for 31,250,000 of people in families of five per- 
sons each, that being the average number in a family 
according to the census of 1890. This would furnish. 



LABORING MAN. -^1 

homes for throe-fourths of all the workini,^ people. It 
amounts to just this : The working people are drinking 
themselves " out of house and home." 

These are startling facts well worthy the considera- 
tion of the leaders of the labor forces, for it simply 
shows that homes cannot be had for the great mass of 
working people until this condition is changed. It is 
almost unbelievable, that this condition should exist, 
and yet be utterly ignored by the labor leaders. Yea 
more than that for some of the leaders, themselves, set 
the example, the following of which has brought about 




A LABOR LEADER IN CHICAGO. 



52 EVERY AMERICAN 

these very conditions. Few have forgotten in so short a 
space of time, the cucumber episode in the Federal 
court room in Chicago. 

The Honorable C. B. Grant, one of the Judges of the 
Supreme Court of the State of Michigan, who for sev- 
eral years was judge of the circuit courts for the upper 
peninsula of Michigan, the center of the great lumber- 
ing and mining districts of the north and central part 
of the United States, and who has had an opportunity 
of studying the effect of the liquor traffic upon laboring 
men as few men have, said, in an address recently deliv- 
ered, that ' ' the term employe includes all who perform 
manual labor. They comprise the great bulk of our 
citizens and voters. All are interested in their char- 
acter and welfare. I state the exact truth when I say, that 
the saloon is the curse of the laboring man. Wherever 
he predominates the saloons are most numerous. Ac- 
cording to information I deem reliable, there are at 
least 700 saloons in Detroit supported by laboring men. 
Concede that each takes in at least |3,000 per year — and 
this is probably a low estimate — and it means the ex- 
penditure of $2,100,000 annually in the saloons by the 
laboring men. The great bulk of this is an absolute 
waste of money for which no valid consideration is re- 
turned. Fifty per cent, of it saved and placed in the 
savings banks or used at home would largely relieve 
your good, thrifty and temperate citizens from the de- 
mands of public and private charity. The superintend- 
ent of a large work near Chicago, which employs many 
hundred workingmen, is my authority for the state- 
ment, that more than two-thirds of the orders and 
checks issued to the workmen are presented for pay- 
ment by the saloon keepers who infest the vicinity; 
Such a condition is disgraceful to the laborers and their 
employes. 



LABORING MAN. . ; 

**And what are tho laboring men doing to relieve 
themselves from this curse and stigma ? Are there any 
organizations among them for that purpose ? Is it one 
of the rules of the many secret labor organizations, that 
their members must be temperate ? If so, no such rule 
has ever been made public, to my Imowledge. The first 
duty of these organizations is to insist that each and 
every member should be temperate, and to place a ban 
upon intoxication and patronizing of saloons. It is a 
duty they owe to themselves, their families, their health, 
and the State. When from 60 to 80 per cent, of the 
money now squandered in the saloons shall be saved 
for legitimate uses, labor will, in my judgment, have 
but little difficulty in obtaining its just rights from cap- 
ital. Sober, honest, industrious, intelligent and level 
headed labor is worth more to capital than that soaked 
in whiskey or beer. Such labor will meet capital on an 
equal footing. Such labor can present its own case, 
make its own argument, and will not need to supi^ort 
walking delegates to act or speak for it. The moral 
law imposes temperance upon all. When labor shall 
have learnedthis lesson, and shall act upon it, the mod- 
ern strike will be a thing unknown, except in history." 

To those interested in the working classes this is a 
matter of great concern. This wanton waste of wages; 
this reckless indulgence in alcoholic drinks, has brought 
a feeling of discouragement, not to say disgust, even 
among the sober element of their own fellow workmen, 
so deep as to open a chasm between them and those 
who otherwise would assist them. This fact will be- 
come apparent as we proceed in this discussion. 

We cannot see how any movement which depends for 
its success upon the efforts of respectable men, can ever 
be carried to a successful termination, under the leader- 
ship of men whose only credentials are a Keely diploma^ 



51 EVERY AMERICAN 

and whose constitutions are so frail as to be completely 
broken down by a little extra exertion. As yet there 
has not been made a record of any such successes. 

These remarks are not intended to cast any reflections 
upon those workmen of the P. M. Arthur stripe, nor 
upon the many careful and considerate ones who have 
given standing and dignity to the labor forces. There 
are many of these, and them we bid God speed in their 
efforts to raise their fellows to a higher plane of living 
and usefulness, and to right the wrongs which capital- 
istic greed has imposed upon them. 

After looking the whole ground over, we are led to 
believe, that before labor can reasonably expect to suc- 
cessfully fight her battles with monopoly she must train 
and discipline her armies. Neither patriotism nor intel- 
ligence comes from the saloon, but the reverse. It is 
not the history of the past that criminals or illiterates 
have won the battles of the world. Labor wants no 
allies of that sort. Labor is honorable. It is born of 
the Creator, for in the beginning He said: "In the 
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." The saloon 
can only defile it for it is the natural enemy of all that 
produces. It can only disgrace labor for the character 
of its adherents is low, as we shall prove before we are 
done with this discussion. If intelligence stands for aught, 
the time has now come for labor to train and discipline 
her forces so that she can enter the contest upon a plane 
equal with capital. This she can never do with her 
ranks full of venal voters and saloon made illiterates, 
for the fight must be one of brains against brains along 
the whole line of battle, and carried on in a rational and 
constitutional manner. 

A fair sample of the character of saloon labor, its ob- 
jects and its aims in life is portrayed in the following 



LABORING MAN. 00 

press dispatch : 

"Omaha, April 11, 1895. — A vain attempt has been 
made to settle the strike of the journeymen brewery- 
men. All the boss brewers of the city met and drew up 
a contract to be signed by the union. The contract 
proved satisfactory, except one clause which provided 
that the workingmen should be furnished beer at 9, 11, 
12, 2, 4, and 6 o'clock. The workmen refused to sign 
unless the clause was changed to free beer every hour. 
The workmen of every brewery in the city are out." 
Six times a day at the beer tank are not enough for the 
beer makers of Omaha ! Beer makers MUST have their 
rights, and by all that is good and great, the full twelve 
times at the tank must be had or Omaha SHALL GO 
DRY ! Shades of Gambrinus, what a fight is there I 
There does not seem to be enough intelligence in the 
whole force of beer brewing employes of Omaha, if 
crystalized at the ballot box, to make one intelligent 
voter. Such is the degradation in store for all labor if 
brought to the true level with the liquor traftic. 

Among the many things to be most regretted is the 
light way in which many leading writers of different re- 
form movements treat the drink question. The author 
of that quite remarkable book, entitled "Looking Back- 
ward," has his chief character sit down serenely, with 
his wine cup and cigar, and smoke and sip to his heart's 
content. That, to the author, seems to be the sublimest 
of all human pleasure ; and he expresses his opinion of 
prohibition on page 184 of this book, in these words : 
" A government, or a majority, which should undertake 
to tell the people, or a minority what they were to eat, 
drink, or wear, as I believe governments in America did 
in your day, would be regarded as a curious anachronism 
indeed." Tlie substance of it is this : In a nation, such 
as he has conceived, where there is a community of 



56 EVERY AMERICAN 

interest, he would have a majority pool their labor with 
the labor of the minority in producing strong drinks and 
cigars, even though it were against their moral and 
religious scruples so to do. In other words he seems to 
consider, that "personal indipendence " consists in the 
right of the minority, no matter how small, to compel a 
majority, no matter how large, to furnish to such 
a minority whiskey and beer upon demand by a 
"popular petition." A refusal of nine tenths of the 
christian people to look upon the wine " when it is red," 
or to "eat flesh or drink wine " or to "give their neigh- 
bor strong drink," or to "put the bottle to him and 
make him drunken also," would be considered by the 
people of his utopia as " inf ringenments upon personal 
independence, and not endurable." We should say that 
it was "personal independence" to allow one man to 
compel nine other men to help him turn the wheels of 
a gin mill which they abhor, detest and loathe. 

Of all the liberties enjoyed by man the most precious 
is the liberty of conscience. 

There is no such thing as political economy in his 
opinion. Waste is waste no longer if it is demanded by 
a number of persons. Though with prudence and econ- 
omy, you might be released from labor and become one 
of the pensioners which he describes, at forty five years 
of age, you must yet work five years longer to contribute 
your share of whiskey, beer and ale to the tipplers of 
this Eldorado. That is " personal independence " with 
a vengeance. 

After a "Keely graduate" had traveled the world over 
to find some place where he might be free from the 
temptations of drink, and where its ravages might npt be 
felt, should he strike this utopia and immediately there- 
after receive the information, that he would have to grind 



LABORING MAN. 57 

for five or six years on a gin mill, if you were to listen 
real closely to him, you might catch this soliloquy : 

Toll nie. ye winged winds, that 'round my pathway roar, 
I)t> ye not know some spot wliere triop: is drunk no more? 
Sonje lonesome, silent spot, some valley in the west. 
Where gro;; is made no more and drunks may take a rest? 
The loud winds whistle as they hustle up their pace. 
And eclio back their answer "nary a place." 

Again the writer of the "Tale of Two Nations," Mr. 
W. H. Harvey, after he has depicted the poverty, suffer- 
ing and want of the followers of Coxey, and has really 
aroused the deepest sympathies of his readers, caps 
the climax by ending the journey of his heroes, Carroll 
and Frame in a saloon in Washington. Of this said 
Carroll he says, on page 187, " He was the central figure 
in every argument in the saloons, and the hotel in Iron- 
ton that secured him as a guest was sure to do the larger 
business. He therefore got his board and liquor thrown 
in. " Speaking of his other character, Frame, he says 
he ' ' was something of a politician, and could poll more 
votes in the thickly settled wards of the city, and cause 
more men to vote early and often than probably any 
other man living." His real hero, Mr. Melwin, finds the 
two in a saloon, in Washington, drinking cock-tails 
and before he gets them out he has them drink at least 
five times. When describing the real stuff of which 
Coxey's army was composed he selects two characters 
out of the rank and file, and describes one as ' ' the central 
figure in every argument in the saloons," that is a sa- 
loon loafer, and the other a ward heeler, who could 
drink five gin cock-tails in half an hour, and make a 
howling good speech to a crowd of barroom loafers in 
the bargain. 

These are the characters with which Mr. Harvey 
proposes to move the world. No self-respecting per- 
son can follow Mr. Harvey's thoughts through 



58 



EVERY AMERICAN 




SCENE IN THE COXY MOVEMENT, IN AVASHINGTON, 
T>. C. , AS DESCRIBED BY W. H. HARVEY, IN A TALE OF 
TWO NATIONS,' CALCULATED TO MAKE A GOOD IMPRES- 
SION UPON RESPECTABLE PEOPLE. 



that barroom scene and come out with any respect 
for Coxey's army. The more one reads the chapter 
the more one is apt to think that had not Mr. 
Coxey's men been to often "the central figure in every 
saloon argument " there would not have been any par- 
ticular need of a march to Washington. There has been, 
from the first, a good deal of suspicion concering the 
character of the rank and file of the said army, and if 
this be a correct portrayal of it, the wonder is that they 
were not arrested for getting in the gutter instead of 
^' on the grass." 



LABORING MAN. 59 

The cause of the working man can receive no lielp 
fi'om the painting of such disgusting pictures as that 
chapter contains. It may be said that Mr. Harvey was 
di*awing upon his stock of imagination in introducing 
these characters. We see no noccessity for insulting a 
reader with such fiction when he has taken the book up 
in good faith and upon the recommendations of suppos- 
edly respectable people. If it be fiction such fiction can 
do the the cause of labor no good. If it be a truthful 
IX)rtrayal then we are led to believe to be true what was 
only a suspicion, that Coxey's army was too often ''the 
central figure of every saloon argument. The world has 
yet to change the i-ule that men are anything else than 
tramjis and hobos who are ' ' the central figure in every 
saloon argument." We do not believe the chapter does 
justice to either Mr Coxey or his army. 

Mr. Harvey appeals to the sympathies of his readers, 
and illustrates the suffering of the helpless people of the 
city of Chicago in the use of the account of the death of 
Mrs. Lindgi'en, published in the Chicago News of Jan. 
23, 1894. We desire to add to what he has said, that 
even while Mrs. Lindgren was being crushed to death 
by a hungry mob, because of their poverty, there were 
running in that city, night and day, G,000 saloons. 
aVllowing 4,000 dollars to be the amount necessary to 
maintain the average saloon, for a year, there were, in 
that year of dark despair, when, according to the pic- 
ture Mr. Harvey has drawn, poverty was the order of the 
day, >^!24,000,000 spent for grog in that city alone. That 
is probably a very low estimate. Seventy-five per cent. 
of that was spent by the working people. 

Besides that ^24,000,000 can be added to that bill as 
equivalent of the indirect loss caused by the liquor traf- 
fic to the city of Chicago. Employment ! there can be 



60 EVERY AMERICAN 

no employment unless the people themselves create a 
demand for it by the proper use of their means. 

So far as the scene described is concerned it should 
excite the sympathy of the people for the poor and it 
does do so. The article referred to begins as fol- 
lows : ' ' Crushed to death by a hungry mob battling 
for food in a county agent's office, Mrs. Anna Lindgren's 
body lies in the little bare parlor at 66 Marion Place." 
Then towards the close it says : ' ' For hours the hus- 
band sat watching his wife's life ebbing away until late 
last night, when death brought her relief from her suf- 
fering." Bad as it was, contrast that scene with the 
scene depicted in the following press dispatch to the 
Detroit Evening News from Bay Shore, Mich. : " Mrs. 
Wm. Evers, wife of Wm. Evers, living two miles south- 
west of here, died yesterday morning from the effects 
of a dose of paris green, which she took with suicidal 
intent. 

' ' Evers was drunk on Saturday and pounded his wife 
in a savage manner, one eye being torn from her head. 
He has been arrested and is now in jail in Charlevoix. 

"Mrs. Evers told her husband of taking the poison half 
an hour after doing so, when he again pounded her and 
dragged her, then deathly sick, down a hill to a neigh- 
bor's house, saying, ' here, this thing has taken poison ; 
do what you can for her. ' It is ten miles to town and 
the woman was dead when a physician from Charlevoix 
reached the scene in company with the prosecuting at- 
torney. 

* ' There is considerable excitement among the neigh- 
bors and talk of lynching is heard on all sides. Evers 
and his wife, who has just died, were hard working peo- 
ple. They have several small children." 



> > 

r a 

K O 



o 

H 

O 

S3 

d 
W 







62 EVERY AMERICAN 

In the one case the husband had been by the side of his 
wife to console her in her last moments, and in the other 
he had torn out her eye and dragged her down the hill to a 
neighbor's house, not to sit by her side, but to leave her 
to die among strangers. If one excites the sympathies, 
what should be the effect of the other ? 

The restoration of silver to its former position for 
which Mr. Harvey is an able advocate, may be a benefit 
to the country at large, but it can never build a home 
for the laboring men of Chicago who insist upon cashing, 
or rather "beering" their checks and orders in the sa- 
loons of that city. Twenty-four millions of dollars ex- 
pended for drink each year in that city, and mainly by 
the laboring classes, represents the value of 16,000 
homes worth in cash, ^1,500 each. The drink bill for 
ten years would represent the cash value of 160,000 such 
homes, or homes enough for two-fifths of the people of 
the whole city. 

If the author's purpose in writing that chapter, was 
to show the necessity for restoring silver to its former 
place so as to enable the drinking classes to buy more 
" cock-tails " he has succeeded in so doing. But if it 
were written for the purpose of showing the need of 
establishing a course of policy, that would enable the 
masses to obtain homes he has been very unfortunate to 
say the least, in the selection of his characters, as well 
as in the course of conduct which he has had them pur- 
sue in order to impress that need upon the minds of 
self-respecting people. 

Labor must learn to follow principles and not men. 
Men may be false to their trusts but principles are 
never. Labor must also learn to distinguish a princi- 
ple from a mere claim of a principle. Numerically 
toda.y labor is at least two times as strong as her op- 



LABORING MAN. 63 

ponent, and yet she claims to be unaer political oond- 
age. This, it seems to me, amounts to an open acknow- 
ledgement of her mental weakness or her inconsistency. 
She needs to unify her forces, but she can only do this 
when they first fully understand their grievances and 
their remedies ; and then secondly have the honesty to 
apply those remedies. UNTIL THEN SHE MUST 
KNOCK AT THE DOOR OF CAPIPAL FOR JUST- 
ICE. SHE CANNOT COMMAND IT. 

Plainly speaking, the great mass of producers are in 
need of further knowledge. They have the physical 
strength and numbers sufficient to enable them to com- 
mand and obtain what they desire, but physical strength 
and numbers have not been the most potent agencies in 
the past, in winning the decisive battles of the world. 
The French army under Napoleon were by no means 
the largest body of men, physically, that were to be 
found in the armies of Europe. Nor had he more men. 
It was the intelligence of his army, and intelligence and 
genius of its commander, that enabled them to meet 
and repeatedly conquer the combined forces of Europe. 
But when he met the English army under Lord Wel- 
lington he found his equal. It was superior intelligence 
that won the victories of Marathon, Salamis, Challons, 
Arabela, Tours, that defeated the Spanish Ar- 
mada, and won the recent victory of Japan over 
China. 

Many of the laboring men are foreign born and illit- 
erate. The principles of political economy are not un- 
derstood by them. Nights and days are spent by large 
numbers of them in pool rooms and saloons when by a 
reasonable amount of effort on the part of the labor 
leaders they could be induced to change that pastime 
for the pleasures of the reading room. What '■■ 



^^5^ 














LABORING MAN. 65 

needs today is independent thinking men and not the 
followers of machines. Capitalists are modern men 
who by study and observation keep abreast with the 
times. Wit|i them there is no pause, but an onward 
march with lockstep through the flying years. Labor 
must not think that she can keep abreast with the times 
if she dictates her spare moments to the upbuilding of 
the kingdom of Gambrinus. Like all other classes the 
laboring man must keep abreast with the times by 
study — study. If he leaves that work for others to do 
he need not be surprised at all if his share of the world's 
goods and pleasures are finally gathered in by his more 
cunning, though perhaps not more scrupulous brother, 
the capitalist. While society is organized as it is, and 
individualism and not paternalism the plan, the labor- 
ing man must recognize the order of things as it is ; 
that it is a '' survival of the fittest," and that the saloon 
is not such a school as will fit a man for the successful 
-struggles of life in such a society. Until that order is 
changed it seems to me, my reader, that the shrewd 
and studious capitalist must continue his advantage 
over half organized, half informed, and half reckless 
laboring men. Labor owes it to herself, and her lead- 
ers owe it to her cause to find a substitute for the Amer- 
ican saloon in the affections of the laboring man. It 
can be done and it must be done. But until this de- 
moralizing, disintegrating and dehumanizing' liquor traf- 
fic is suppressed and the laboring man freed from its 
demoralizing and dehumanizing influences we believe 
the complete amelioration of his condition cannot 
be accomplished, however much we would like to 
see it. 

In the language of Thomas Jefferson, "Education is 



66 



EVERY AMERICAN 



the only sure foundation that can be devised for the 
preservation of freedom and happiness." 

Yours most respectfully, 




Grand Rapids, Mich. , August, 29th,, 1895. 

TO ANY MERCHANT FAVORABLE TO SALOONS, 
ANY TOWN, U. S. A. 

Dear Sir: — 

Assuming the responsibility of offending you, we 
address this short letter to ^ou and ask you to have the 
patience to read it through. 

In passing through the country we have been sur- 
prised to hear, that many merchants favor the licensing 
of saloons in the towns in which they do business. In 
visiting a town a short time since we asked a merchant 
why he favored opening saloons and opposed the sup- 
pression of them in his own town. We were greatly 
surprised to hear him answer that if it were not for the 
isaloons grass would grow in the streets, that saloons 
made times lively for they kept money in circulation, 
and that they helped to pay his taxes. 

While such argument is too silly to deserve a reply 
we are disposed to answer it for the benefit of such 
blind followers of the traffic. 

Like the day laborer, the merchant or business man 
is a producer. He is the last link in the great chain of 
production, for the placing of goods for consumption, in 
<5onvenient markets is the finishing touch to consumable 
products. Through the open doors of the mercantile 



68 EVERY AMERICAN 

establishments of the country, labor will find a market 
or she will not find it at all. A healthy mercantile bus- 
iness means a sound market for labor. The interests 
of the merchantandtheworkingman are common. What- 
ever thing puts rags upon the laborer can be counted 
as an enemy to the "business man." And conversely 
whatever robs a business man of a market for his goods 
can be counted, generally speaking, an enemy to labor, 
for he sells the products of labor. If the liquor traffic 
clothes men and their families with rags, and causes 
them to eat from dry-goods boxes it must be evident 
from the very rags they wear, that some merchant has 
been beaten in the race for patronage. 

With reference to business the people can be divided 
into two classes, namely : Producers and consumers. 
The same consumers who furnish a market for bread, 
clothing, hardware and furniture, and thereby furnish 
a business for the merchant, and he in turn furnishes a 
market for the labor of the men who are employed in 
the factories, these same consumers must furnish a 
market for intoxicating liquors. Thus we see in all the 
great market centers, and even in the little country 
hamlets the saloonist placed side by side with the re- 
spectable merchant bidding for the money of the con- 
sumers. It is only a question of which the consumers 
will patronize the saloon or the store, and the money 
which he thus spends will go either to build up honest 
legitimate business in all its forms and branches, or it 
will go into the channels of the liquor business to build 
up the already coilossal fortunes of the beer brewers 
and whiskey distillers. Just as sure as money spent 
for the purchase of bread and clothing will build up the 
business of the factory and farm, just so sure will 
money spent for liquor build up the liquor business and 
increase its power and influence. 



LABORING MAN. 69 

The whole saloon system is in direct competition with 
honest, rational business. A dollar cannot go in two 
directions at the same time, and iintil it can be made to 
do so, the saloon wherever it exists, must divide the 
trade with the merchant nearly to the extent of its 
patronage. If a merchant is so much a saloon friend 
that he desires to divide up his own patronage to enable 
them to do business in his community, he can do no 
gi'eater service to it than to welcome it and give it his 
support. The loafers, paupers, beggars, criminals and 
deadbeats, which it will create will speak fully of the 
character of its competition. The business man's led- 
ger if he will study it carefully, will disclose the fact, 
that out of all the deadbeats whose names appear upon 
its pages fully eighty per cent, of them have spent 
enough cash in the saloons during the year to liquidate 
their indebtedness to him. The following diagram may 
assist us in the study of this question. The diagram 
shows the natural order of business : 



70 



EVERY AMERICAN 



COIVSUMERS, 



U 

CD 

B 
pi 



o 
p- 

O 



Merchants' 

Counters. 



O 

i 



td 

CD 



Producers of Desirable Commodities, 



LABORING MAN. 



71 



The diagram represents a natural and undivided de- 
mand for the things which satisfy rational wants for 
the necessities and comforts of life. Honest labor has 
the whole field to herself and merchants supply the 
markets. The whole of the money of the people is 
•either spent through this channel or is saved. There is 
no leakage and honest trade is at its maximum limit. It 
represents the gi-eat masses of people as spending 
their money for rational purposes and accumulating 
property. 

But just at this time an interloper slips in, taps this 
stream, gives a few gullible people a taste of his com- 
modities, talks about personal liberty and about keeping 
money in circulation ; and grass from growing in the 
streets. Finally by his sophistries he has gained fol- 
lowers and then he changes the diagram to represent a 
situation like the following : 

CONSUMERS. 




Producers of 
Grog. 



Producers of Desirable 
Commodities. 



72 EVERY AMERICAN 

Now it is quite evident that the power of men to earn 
money is limited, and that a certain number of them 
have either ceased to accumulate property or have with- 
drawn their patronage from the merchants and have 
given it to the saloons. Capital once invested in the 
production of things which go to make life useful and 
happy has nov/ been invested in the liquor traffic to ac- 
complish for society all that the traffic is capable of do- 
ing. Labor once dedicated to the work of making for 
men those things upon which life itself depends, and in 
which true happiness is found, is now dedicated to the^ 
ujjbuilding of that traffic whose real use to society is 
described by Lord Brougham, of England, as * ' the 
mother of want and the nurse of crime ; " and the true 
nature of it by Shakespeare in these words : * ' E very- 
inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a 
devil ; " and its effect upon mankind by Daniel Webster 
as follows : ' ' Nothing less certain can be said of it 
than that it is a great evil, and in an ordinary degree 
the parent and concomitant of other vices. Doubtless, 
more than all other vices, this unfits the mind for culti- 
vation or growth of any plant of virtue. It strikes a^ 
blow, a deadly blow, at once on all its capacities and all 
its sensibilities. It renders it alike incapable of pious, 
feelings, of social regard and of domestic affection." 

Now inasmuch as the total cost of liquor consumed has 
increased three-fold in the last twenty-five years, and 
the population of the whole country has increased but 
two-fold in that time, it is quite evident, that if the 
ratio keeps up indefinitely as it surely will if the policy 
of the saloon sympathizers becomes the established 
policy, we shall eventually have a situation which may 
be represented by the following diagram : 



LABORING MAN. 



78 



Saloon 

Counters 



Merchants' 
Counters 




Producers of Grog. 



Producers of Desir- 
able Commodities. 



Let me ask of you and the other merchants of this 
country the question, that if saloons can produce a de- 
mand for their commodities where will that demand 
end ? Will grog make- sad grog sellers ever cease 
their competition for the wealth of this world of their 
own accord ? 

There is no foundation for such belief. The liquor 
power is today more rapacious and more grasping than 
at any other time in its history. It is ready and will 
■ever be ready to build its distilleries upon the walls of 
the factories which its competition has ruined. 

If you are favorable to the saloon your attitude bids 
present welcome to that day when the distillery and 
brewery shall supplant the factory and the saloon shall 



74 EVERY AMERICAN 

supplant the store. Do you wish to lay the foundation, 
for your posterity to engage in the grog trade ? If so 
encourage the business and by virtue of its inherent 
ability to compete for the earnings of men it will force 
them into it or into bankruptcy. If the grog trade of 
the country is actually increasing over the increase ot 
population what means have you of knowing where it 
will end ? Whose business is it to hold it in check ? Is- 
it the business of honest men to show its evils while you. 
advocate the opening of these same shops in your own. 
town ? If you desire to see distilleries built upon the 
debris of ruined factories, and if you wish to have your 
children and your children's children converted from 
merchants into saloon keepers then help the onward 
march of the liquor traflic. If you wish to see your- 
country reap the fruits of the distillery instead of the 
fruits of the farm and the factory then maintain a 
friendly relation toward the grog trade and your pos-^ 
terity shall repent your wrong doings in sack cloth and. 
ashes. 

Who are the true friends of the business men of the 
country, anyway ? Many a merchant has called me a 
fanatic and crank while he has called a saloon keepeir 
his friend in. business. By my advice I have never 
turned a drinking man away from a store into the grog 
shops to spend his last dime. To illustrate the case 
allow me to represent a person standing at the forks of 
a great highway, the right hand road leading to the 
doors of the merchants and the left hand road leading- 
to the doors of the saloons. Clothe me with the power- 
to direct the people either way I choose and send them, 
forth. Watch them as they come down the broad street 
to the forks. You recognize some of them as your cus- 
tomers and you know that they need many of the things. 



LABORING MAN. 75 

"Which you wish to sell. You stand at your counter 
ready to sell. You have the best quality of goods, 
sweet and wholesome. The people look tired and hun- 
gry. You watch me in breathless silence. Your own 
prosperity depends upon the way which I point my 
finger. I even hear the cries of hungry children at 
home waiting for these men to return with provisions 
which you are eager to sell to them. Horror stricken 
and mad with rage you see me, chuckling with delight 
over the bribe which I hold in my pocket, and pointing 
one after another these men and women down the left 
hand fork to the saloons to spend their money. This 
process is kept up day after lay, and finally you are 
forced to the wall because your patronage has been 
taken from you and you and your family become beg- 
gars or starve. 

There is no name by which such a man can be de- 
scribed. Judas would scarcely do him justice. He 
might be known as public sentiment and inasmuch as 
the sentiment of the individuals of a community taken 
together make the '* public" sentiment of the place, it 
makes it plain that every man or woman stands at the 
forks of the road and with the index finger points in the 
direction which he or she prefers the people to go. It 
is either to the right or to the left. If you are in favor 
of saloons the index finger of your sentiments points to 
the left, even away from your own doors, and you en- 
courage the spending of money in saloons and the build- 
ing of distilleries and breweries at the expense of honest 
business. 

On the other hand suppose I should so stand at the 
forks of that road and should refuse the bribe of the 
saloon power, and should point the way to your doors ; 
and by reason of it your business should prosper, would 
you then call me "fanatic ? " The temperance element 






• c 







EH 
I— I 

O 

Oh 



LABORING MAN. 77 

ai'e pointing to your stores and with kind words of ad- 
vice ))oint the men and women to your doors away from 
the saloons, and for this act of kindness you call them 
fanatics and swear eternal fidelity to the i^jnorant for- 
eigner around the corner who has for the sign above 
the doorway the words "Peter Bobolinski's Saloon." 

Should business men object to the efforts of others who 
would convert dissolute saloon patrons into honest pa- 
trons of dry goods and grocery stores ? 

Is it possible that reason has reached that point where 
business men openly oppose the directing of men with 
their means into their own establishments instead of 
the saloons ? That is precisely the position of at least 
one- half of the business men of today, and we do say 
that such a course is without reason and is suicidal. 
The saloons, breweries and distilleries are to the liquor 
trade what the stores and factories are to honest, ra- 
tional business. Both systems must depend upon the 
people for support. Both are struggling for that sup- 
port. It is under the law of competition that the strug- 
gle is made. It is a case of the ' ' survival of the fittest," 
and when you are able to rob a man of his character, 
his home and loved ones, and finally his hope in heaven 
and then claim and obtain his friendship, then and not 
until then will you be able to stand on an equal footing 
with this monstrous traffic in the field of competition. 
It has increased in power and patronage over the com- 
bined influences of all the temperance forces. What 
will it be able to do if this opposition is taken away and 
the business openly encouraged as you have helped to 
encourage it. With all scruples against the use of 
liquor removed and all men converted to its standard, 
when proffligacy and reckless living shall take the 
place of frugality and prudence what will become of so- 
ciety, anyway ? By your attitude you invite those pos- 



78 



EVERY AMERICAN 



sibilities. If those conditions are not to be realized then 
who shall prevent ? Surely not the friends of the traffic. 
The following table shows the increase of the consump- 
tion of liquor along with the increase of population ac- 
cording to the revenue and census reports : 



Population 


Distilled Spirits 


Fermented 


Fiscal year 


estimated, 
except for 


produced, 

gallons 
per capita. 


Liquors 
produced, 


ending 


census 
year. 


gallons 
per capita. 


June 30. 


33,955,858 


.476 


1.832 


1863 


34,793,371 


2.451 


2.800 


1864 


35,fi30,884 


.476 


3.182 


1865 


36,468,397 


.660 


4.348 


1866 


87,305,910 


.878 


5.158 


1867 


38,143,413 


.443 


4.992 


1868 


38,980.936 


1.392 


6.044 


1869 


39.318,449 


1.822 


5.119 


1870 


40,a')2,183 


1.396 


5.873 


1871 


41,885,915 


1.665 


6.409 


1872 


42,919,648 


1.659 


6.958 


1873 


43,953,381 


1.583 


6.771 


1874 


44,987,114 


1.393 


6.513 


1875 


, 46,020.847 


1.274 


6.670 


1876 


47,054,581 


1.306 


6.463 


1877 


48,088,315 


1.190 


6.602 


1878 


49,122,049 


1.484 


7.001 


1879 


50,155,783 


1.822 


8.249 


1880 


51,402,429 


2.325 


8.633 


1881 


62,649,075 


2.038 


9.981 


1883 


53,895,721 


1.397 


10.214 


1883 


65,142,368 


1.388 


10.680 


1884 


66,389.015 


1.357 


10.547 


1885 


57,635,662 


1,420 


11.140 


1886 


58,882,309 


1.349 


12.171 


1887 


60,128,956 


1.192 


12.725 


1888 


61,375,603 


1,338 


12.688 


1889 


62,622,250 


1.776 


13.644 


1890 


63,868,897 


1.840 


14.802 


1891 


65,115,544 


1,833 


15.166 


1892 


66,000,000 


1.850 


16.150 


1893 



But you say it helps to pay taxes. Is the collection 
of taxes the only function and duty of government ? 
Shall we resort to every contemptible scheme that we 
may ** pay taxes? " There are many corpses buried with 
valuable clothing and jewels which might be sold to 
pay taxes. Shall V7e rob the grave to pay taxes ? Is it 
not more honorable to rob the dead of its jewels than 
the living of its character ? Besides that are you sure 



LABORING MAN. 79 

that the taxes which you pay to support the prisons, 
police courts judges, juries, lawyers, insane asylums 
and pauper-houses, whose existence is made necessary 
largely by the liquor traffic, is not more than what you 
receive from the traffic itself ? 

Since you are familiar with the ledger suppose we 
open an account with the saloons for a year, and at the 
end of that time balance accounts with them. The ac- 
count would stand something like the following : 

Liquor Traffic In Account loith Society. 

1895 



1895 

DEBIT. 

To productive t)ower of 500, 

800 hands $ 325,000,000 

To cost of crime, pauperism, 

insanity and sickness due 

to it 163.624.889 

To cost paid for liquor 1,250,000,000 

To loss of productive power 

of 2,.')00, 000 intemperate 

men. tramps, crlminals.&c 130,000,000 
To loss of 30,000 lives due to 

drink 30,000,000 



Total $1,888,624,889 

550,000,000 



CREDIT. 

By wages paid to 500,000 
hands $ 325,000,00a 

By liquor furnished for me- 
chanical, chemical, and 
manufacturing purposes, 80,000,000 

By Internal revenue paid, . , 145,000,00^ 



Total % 550,000,000- 



Balance due, $1,330,624,889 
(See Cyclopaedia of Temperance, Page 136.) 



Adam Smith said a century ago that the liquor traffic 
was unproductive. The showing for society from year 
to year is growing worse and worse. Where will it end 
if carried on indefinitely ? Is the example of Belgium 
of no importance to us ? Are we so reckless or so ig- 
norant of facts that we will permit this thing to con- 
tinue without any adequate effort to check it ? 

Again to put the matter in another light, let us turn 
to another page of the ledger, and with the help of 
Prof. Ely, balance another account with the l?D[uor 
traffic : 



80 



EVERY AMERICAN 



Liquor Traffic In Account v:ith Society. 



1895 

DEBIT. 

To the making of drunkards, thugs, 
thieves, rape fiends, loafers, liouse- 
burners. burglars and murderers. 

To the making of orphans and wid- 
ows, the destruction of homes, the 
tears, the heartache and misery of 
the helpless, the- murder of 6.500 peo- 
ple annually, and finally the damna- 
tion of the souls of men - 

Total sum total of "all human 

villanies." 



1895 

CREDIT. 

By " the best that can be said for even 
a moderate use of these apart from 
medicinal and mechanical purpose.? 
is that they do no positive harm to 
the individual's physical well-being, 
and that they afford at least a tem- 
porary solace and tend to socia- 
bility." 

Total Sol ace and sociability. 



Is that the kind of a ledger yoa are keeping ? In the 
vote upon the question of a continuation of business 
with these men do you say "Aye." It is a fearful book 
account growing more fearful year after year. Strong 
drink is the chief source of revenue for our government. 
Something like $145,000,000 were received by the treas- 
ury department from it last year. 

How could we run the government without it you ask? 
Well, who pays this revenue, anyway ? The people, 
you say. Very well. We are not contemplating killing 
them by suppressing the drink traffic. They might 

just as well pay the tax one way as another, so long as 
they have got to pay it, and the tax will be much more 
certain coming from sober men than it will coming from 
drunkards, criminals and paupers. Quoting the lan- 
guage of Mr. Gladstone used in parliament we will rest 
on that point : " Gentlemen, you need not give your- 
self any trouble about the revenue. The question of 
revenue must never stand in the way of needed reforms. 
Besides, with a sober population, not wasting their 
earnings, I shall know where to obtain the revenue." 
Those were the words of a statesman who had the wel- 
fare of his people at heart, and they have the true 
sound in them. 



LABORING MAN. 



81 



The policy which seems to have been adopted by thir 
and preceding administrations is to realize in almost 
anyway enough cash to pay salaries and make appro- 
priations, suppress the facts concerning the results and 
let a confiding people foot the bills. 



TWO-THIKDSOF ALL CRIMES DUE TO LIQUOR." 







CARLISLE : ' " HOW C AX T INCREASE OUR INTERNAL 
REVENUE ? I HAVE IT ! FIFTY CENTS MORE ON A BAR- 
REL OF BEER WILL DO IT." 



82 



EVERY AMERICAN 



The following verse from one of the world's greatest 
poets states our case exactly : 

" The excise is fattened with a rich result 
Of all this riot. The ten thousand casks, 
Forever dribbling out their base contents, 
Touched by the Midas fingers of the State, 
Bleed gold for parliament to vote away. 
Drink and be mad, then, 'tis your country bids. 
Gloriously drunk— obey the important call ! 
Her cause demands the assistance of your throats ; 
Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more." 

COWPER. 



Most , respectfully yours, 




Grand Rapids, Mich., August 30, 1895. 

TO ANY FARMER WHO FAVORS THE LIQUOR 
TRAFFIC, ANYWHERE, U. S. A. 

Dear Sir: 

Among the great army of producers, who have suf- 
fered wrong by unscrupulous monopolists and trafficers, 
no class has suffered more than the farmer. Always 
with tangible, visible property which cannot be con- 
cealed he has been the sure mark for the tax assessor 
and tax gatherer. 

Among the many institutions which have laid broad 
claims to the friendship of the great rural classes are 
the liquor dealers. In campaign after campaign have 
they appealed to the farmers for help, on the score of 
being their friends. Many times when attacked by the 
prohibitionists have they taken the farmer to the doors 
of then- ware houses and, pointing to the heaps of grain, 
upon the floors, they have said "will you follow the 
sophistries of the fanatics and, closing the breweries 
and distilleries, rob yourself of a market for this pro- 
duce which we buy of you ? " The farmer looking upon 
the grain, and being unable to see any farther yields his 
support to the trafl&c. 

No class of men have ever made greater mistakes 
than ha^'^e the farmers in this matter. Had they rea- 
soned the matter through to a sound conclusion, and 
acted consistently therewith, they would never have 
given it any of their support. 



84 ANY FARMER WHO 

The liquor traffic has always robbed the farmer of a 
market for his produce and placed taxation upon him to 
care for its results.. Prof. Ely, in his treatise on page 
156 has this to say, in regard to the traffic : "It is im- 
portant to note that if the 700,000,000 dollars (now 
$1,250,000,000) now spent for grain in the form of 
liquors were expended for food and other farm pro- 
ducts to satisfy the rational wants of the thousands of 
families who are rendered destitute by intemperance it 
would purchase seven times as much grain in the form 
of flour as it does in the form of liquor ; because it is 
true with regard to liquors as with all luxuries that the 
amount of raw materials used in their production is far 
less compared with their cost to the consumers, than it 
is in any of the other products that satisfy human 
wants. Thus we can see that those farmers who think 
that the liquor industries create a demand for their 
commodities, and those brewers and distillers who en- 
deavor to instill this belief are both deceived and are 
deceivers. How much better it would be if farmers 
could secure high prices for their grain and other pro- 
ducts by ministering to those rational wants which 
strengthen human nature and enable consumers to pro- 
duce in-turn a greater abundance of wealth, rather than 
by satisfying the demnnds of debased appetites that de- 
grade men and lessen the wealth producing power of 
the community. It is of course, obvious that if men 
spend less for liquors, tobacco, opium, and the like, 
they will have so much more to spend for other things, 
and the opportunities for employment will not be at all 
lessened. On the contrary, as other expenditures are 
more likely to be productive opportunities for employ- 
ment will inevitably be multiplied. " 

Prof. Ely says, that if the money spent for liquor and 
which thereby furnishes a market for grain, were to be 



FAVOKS LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 



85 



spent in purchasing flour directly of the farmer it would 
purchase at least seven times as much. Let us analyze 
that statement and see if it be true. One bushel of 
-helled corn will make at least four gallons of undi kited 
whiskey. (Revenue report 1890, p. 5s.) A good grade 
of whiskey retails readily at fifty cents a pint. One 
quart would sell at one dollar. One gallon would sell 
at four dollars and four gallons, the product of one 
bushel of shelled corn, would sell at sixteen dollars. 
Therefore it would necessitate the expenditure of six- 
teen dollars for liquor before the farmer could realize a 
market for a single bushel of corn. By buying the corn 
directly of him fifty cents will buy a bushel, and with 




farmer: "gosh, these DISTILLERIES AND BREW- 
ERIES MAKE A FINE THING AT MY EXPENSE. THEY 
ONLY MAKE THESE RAG MUFFINS PAY 5^16.00 FOR 40 
CENTS WORTH OF MY CORN, AND $12.00 FOR 30 CENTS 
WORTH OF MY BARLEY.'' 



86 ANY FARMER WHO 

"the sixteen dollars, the amount of money necessary to 
buy one bushel via the liquor traffic, at that price thirty- 
two bushels could be purchased directly of him. In 
view of the fact that the liquor dealers have posed as 
the friends of the farmer it is no wonder that Prof. Ely 
says that the farmer is deceived and that the liquor 
■dealers are deceivers. 

We desire to quote here a portion of an article found 
in the Cyclopaedia of Temperance. It is so clear and so 
authentic : 

' ' The direct cost represented by the actual cash 
expenditures for alcoholic drink is estimated by no one 
to be less now than $800,000,000 per annum in the 
United States ; and probably nearer $1,000,000,000 per 
annum than this figure. (This estimate was made in 
1889). The indirect cost occasioned by expenditures on 
account of taxes, crime, pauperism, etc., due to the 
drink traffic, and by loss of time, health, wages, etc. It 
is believed by every careful student of the subject to be 
fully as great as the direct cost. Therefore the entire 
direct and indirect cost to the people of the United 
States because of the existence of this traffic ranges 
from $1,600,000,000 to $2,000,000,000 per annum. In 
1880 according to the census more than forty per cent, 
.of all persons engaged in gainful occupations were con- 
nected with agricultural pursuits. It cannot be safely 
-assumed, that forty per cent, of the cost of the drink 
traffic is therefore borne by the farmers, for the farmers 
are certainly more temperate than most other classes. 
But most people will admit that if it is estimated that 
not less than twenty per cent, of this cost falls directly 
or indirectly upon the farmers, the estimate will be low. 
Twenty per cent, of $1,600,000,000 (the lowest possible 
estimate of the aggregate direct and indirect cost of 
the liquor traffic per annum) is therefore $320,000,000 — 



FAVORS LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 87 

the farmer's share (on the basis of an extremely con- 
servative calculation) of the annual expenditure in the 
United States for supporting a traffic which, at the ut- 
most, pays the farmers but thirty-live million dollars 
for the grain, hops, molasses, grapes, etc., consumed in 
its manufacturing branches. On the basis of this ex- 
ceedingly conservative estimate the farmer pays more 
than nine dollars to support the drink traffic for every 
dollar that he receives from it ; and when it is consid- 
ered that the nine dollars paid out is clear loss for 
which absolutely nothing of value comes back, while 
the dollar received is not clear gain but represents 
simply the sum paid by the liquor manufacturers in ex- 
change for the farmer's commodities and labor — when 
also fair allowance is made for the too conservative 
methods of calculation that we have employed it will 
readily be granted that the farmer's profit and loss in 
his account with the liquor traffic may more reasonably 
be supposed to stand in the ratio of one dollar to twen- 
ty dollars than one dollar to nine dollars. 

"But this is not all. The extinction of the whole 
liquor business would indisputably benefit every legiti- 
mate producing interest. The ^800,000,000 or SI, 000,- 
000,000 now expended directly each year in the United 
States for intoxicating drinks would then be applied to 
other purposes. Of course a very large proportion of it 
would be hoarded by individuals, dei^osited in savings 
banks, etc. ; but a great proportion would be used 'or 
buying necessaries oi ixx3 for the poverty stricken fami- 
lies of drinkers. Whatever this proportion would be — 
whether one-half, two-thirds or a larger or smaller per- 
- -^ntage of the p- ^ ^800,000,000 or $1,000,000,000 now 
wasted for liquor, — immense sums would thus be added 
<) those now expended for the farmer's products. Be- 
ides enabling the farmer to save what he is now forced 



bS ANY FARMER WHO 

to spend for the support of the liquor traffic and its 
criminals, paupers, courts, jails, etc: Prohibition 
would increase the market for his goods and swell his 
receipts." (Temperance Encyclo]D9edia, page 173, writ- 
ten in 1889.) 

The great organizations of grangers and farmers' alli- 
ances have recognized the destructiveness of the liquor 
traffic and in their representative gatherings have 
stated their opposition to it repeatedly. In 1889 the 
National Farmers' Alliance and Laborer's Union, at St. 
Louis, Mo., adopted the following plank : "Resolved, 
that we are opposed to the liquor traffic in all of its 
!orms." 

At a convention held at Desmoines, la., 1889, the Na- 
tional Farmers' Alliance declared : ' ' Resolved, that we 
recommend the passage of such laws by the National 
government as will prohibit the manufacture and sale 
of all intoxicating beverages within the borders of the 
United States under severe penalty. " In 1888 it made 
the following utterances : ' ' Resolved that we demand 
such legislation in regard to the liquor traffic as will 
prevent that business from increasing our taxes, en- 
dangering the morals of our children, and destroying 
the usefulness of our citizens." 

In 1889, at the annual convention of the National 
Grange, Master J. H. Brigham, head of the organiza- 
tion, said in his address : ' ' Every influence of our or- 
der, financial and intellectual, fraternal and moral is 
opposed to the traffic in intoxicating liquor. Unsuc- 
cessful efforts have been made during the year to adopt 
amendments prohibiting the manufacture and sale in the 
several states. The failure of the year should teach us 
the great importance of concentrating the influence of 
those who are opposed to the traffic." 



FAVORS LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 



89 



When we come to consult facts the claims of the 
liquor men appear ridiculous to us. 

The tliree counties of Jewell, Cloud and Washington 
of the State of Kansas, as shown by the map given 
herein, are able to annually supply the liquor trade of 
the United States with more grain than it uses in the 
manufacture of all malt and distilled liquors. They are 
productive counties with little waste land in them. 
They have twenty-five townships each, or 1,728,000 
acres of land. We will give in the following table the 
amount of grain consumed in the manufacture of liquor 
for the year 1893, together with the number of acres 
required to produce the same. This table is based upon 
the agricultural and internal revenue reports for 1893, 
and the acreage upon the census reports of 1890. 

The number of gallons of molasses per acre is taken 
from the census reports of 1890 of the states of Ala- 
bama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida : 



Materials. 



No. of Bushels 
Consumed. 



Wheat .. 
Com .... 

Rye 

Oats 

Barley . . 
Molasses 
Hops .. 



lOn.778 

13.574. 80r, 

3.2»».x.637 

24.491 

57 223,881 

5.47t,..= 21 (prals.) 

40,000,000 (lbs.) 



Average No. Bush, 
per acre in Kan's. 



20 

36 

15 

31 

23 [acre) 

100 (galg. per 
567 (lbs. pr acre) 



No. of Acres. 



5,039 

377.077 

217,809 

790 

2.=)1,851 

.i4,7C6 

71,17i 



Total number of acres 978,503 

Number of acres of land in the three Counties. . 1,728,000 

Number of acres used 978.503 

Balance unused 749,497 



It is seen that we would still have left 749,497 acres 
of land with which to devote to the production of vinous 
liquors. 

We have no reliable data and have not been able to 
find any showing the exact quantity of vineyard pro- 
ducts used in the manufacture of liquor. According to 



90 ANY FARMER WHO 

the most liberal estimates not over $3,000,000 is annually 
paid to the growers of vineyard products by the manu 
facturers of vinous liquors, and this probably exceeds 
the amount. No intelligent person will claim that it 
will take 749,497 acres of land to produce S3,000,000 
worth of grapes. It would be a rather poor investment 
if an acre of vineyard would produce only $4 worth of 
products. It would be safe to say that ifc would pro- 
duce at least twenty-five times as much. The disparity 
between the facts of the case and claims of the liquor 
men in this instance are no greater than they are in any 
other. Their greed for gain seems to have dulled what 
sense of justice they may have had in the beginning, so 
that they can now offer any pretext for a continuation 
of their business with seemingly little compunctions of 
conscience. 

In the year 1893, according to the reports before 
referred to, there were 74,901,543 bushels of farm pro- 
ducts, 40,000,000 lbs hops and 5,476,521 gallons of molas- 
ses used in the manufacture of distilled and malt liquors, 
^3,000,000 worth of vineyard products used in the manu- 
facture of vinous liquors, making a total value of i^40,- 
671,157, when these products were made into liquor they 
cost the consumers ^1,250,000,000, in round numbers ac- 
cording to the best estimates. The total value of all the 
products of this character for that year was $1,112,982,- 
931. 

It will be seen that less than four per cent of the val- 
ne of these farm products of that year when purchased 
through the channels of the liquor traffic cost the consu- 
mers more than $100,000,000, more than the total value 
of the whole product of the United States. 

Allowing 65,000,000, to be the population for the year 
1893, and the number of bushels of products actually con- 



91 FAVORS LIQUOR TRFFIC 

sumed in the manufacture of liquor to be 75,000,000, it is 
seen that the traffic furnished a market for only one and 
two thirteenths bushels of grain per each person and yet 
it took at least |17 to purchase it in the form of liquor 
over the' counters of the saloons. 

Those who have taken any pains to observe at all 
have no doubt that the underconsumption caused by fa- 
thers, mothers and guardians purchasing strong drinks 
for themselves instead of food for their impoverished fa- 
milies amounts to far more than the insignificant a- 
mount of one and two thirteenths bushels per capita for 
which the liquor traffic has furnished a market 

Again taking the number of bushels of grain consum- 
ed by the traffic in 1893, which was 75,000,000, and its 
value 130,517,315, we find the average price per bushel 
to be 40 cents. In as much as the amount of grain con- 
sumed by the liquor traffic annually was but one and 
two-thirteenths bushels per capita, it follows that the 
traffic furnished a market for 46 cents w^orth of grain 
per each man woman and child in the country; and for 
that 46 cents worth of produce purchased via the liquor 
traffiic the people paid |17. On. an average a family of 
five persons would purchase |2. 30 worth of produce from 
the farmer via the liquor traffic while they would have 
to pay $85 for it. Putting it in another form a family 
of five persons would purchase five and ten- thirteenths 
bushels of grain of the farmer via the saloons with the 
185 when if they had bought it directly of him they 
would have purchased 212 bushels with the same mon- 
ey! 

There are few men who drink who can afford it. The 
demand for liquor, with them, is satisfied first what 
is left goes to satisfy rational wants. AYith the average 
drinker the natural order of things is reversed. Instead of 



o 

IP 

c s 
o -^ 

!^ 

c o 

^:^ 

«- > 







w^ 













93 ANY FARMER WHO 

supplying themselves and their oftentimes impoverished 
families with the simple comforts of life and laying up a 
few cents for a ''rainy day" the reverse is the rule, and 
the liquor bill is placed at the head of the list. In this very 
city at any time of day one can count scores of men drinking 
in the saloons wearing clothing that health and respecta- 
bility both require should be cast off and replaced by new 
and better. The same conditions exist in their impoverish, 
ed and neglected families. We do not believe that there 
is a single city in the whole country where saloons ex- 
ist that this condition is not prevalent. 

According to the crop reports for 1894, the valuation 
of the six leading crops, viz: corn, oats, wheat, barley, 
potatoes and hay is put at 1,582,677,342. Almost enough 
money was spent last year, for liquor, to have purchas- 
ed the entire product. Instead of doing this and ad- 
ding blessing and prosperity to the people it purchased, 
liquor which caused at least two thirds of all the crime, 
pauperism and insanity, destroyed homes, corrupted 
municipal governments, made putrid public morals,har- 
dened the hearts of the people and murdered 6, 500 in- 
nocent people, despoiled their families, damned the 
souls of its victims and robbed you of a market for the 
products of your labor. 

Claiming to furnish a market for the produce of the 
farmer it requires of the consumer in order to purchase 
five and ten- thirteenths bushels of grain enough money 
to buy 212 bushels and places upon the farmer his share 
of the cost of maintaining asylums, pauperhouses, pene- 
tentiaries, police courts, jails, judges, lawyers, prosecu- 
tors, juries, policemen, sherriffs etc., besides corrupting 
society, the state, his neighbor and his own sons and 
daughters. 



FAVORS LIQUOR TRAFFIC 

*'He that buys land buys many stones* 
He that buys flesh buys many bones, 
He that buys eggs buys many shells, 

He that buys ale buys nothing else." 

« 

Yours Most Respectfully, 



94 




95 TO ANY 

Grand Rapids, Sept , 5th 1895, 

To Any Professed Christian, 
Christendom, 
Dear Brother and Friend. — 

" It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor 
anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended 
or is made weak." (Rom. xiv: 21.) 

The above verse was written by Paul, the great apos- 
tle to the Romans, eighteen hundred years ago. Jesus 
Christ had been upon the earth preaching his gospel 
and performing his wonderful miracles before the mul- 
titudes. Saul of Tarsus had been one of his most danger- 
ous enemies, but by one of the most marvelous conver- 
sions recorded in history he became the greatest cham- 
pion of the christian faith of his time, and probably the 
greatest the world has known. 

A little colony of his Jewish followers had been esta- 
blished in Rome. They were surrounded by enemies 
and temptations. The Romans were eaters of flesh and 
drinkers of strong drinks. The old testament contained 
some injunctions against these practices and they were fa- 
miliar with them. Many times had they read the follow- 
ing passages : ' 'And the Lord spake unto Aaron, saying, do 
not drink wine, thou nor thy sons with thee." (Lev. x:8, 
9,). "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor strong 
drink, that puttest the bottle to him, and maketh him 
drunken also. " (Hab. II. :15,). "Look not thou upon the 
wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, 
when it mo veth itself aright. " (Prov. xxii: 31,). "Be not 
among wine-bibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh." 

They were the professed followers of Christ and as 
such they were subject to severe criticism. They were 
anxious to know just what to do with the many vexed 
questions that had arisen. Drinking was a great vice 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 96 

among the Romans, and they desired to know how it 
was to be regarded under the new dispensation. Befog- 
ged by the sophistries of the reckless and licensious Ro- 
mans they sought Paul to learn of him their duties. 

Held up, as they were, as examples of purity and 
righteousness it was important that they should know 
how to act with reference to one of the Roman customs. 

They had desired a visit from Paul so that they might 
learn personally of him their duties as Christians. But 
Paul had a work to perform which precluded a visit to 
Rome. He could only communicate to them by letter 
his instructions Realizing that he was sending instruc 
tions to his church, situated among the best educated and 
most critical people in the world, how carefully he must 
have weighed every proj^osition which he laid down. 

He was simply giving them an interpretation of what 
Christ, whom he had known, had meant when he had 
taught the multitudes the principles of self denial and 
self sacrifice for the good of their fellow creatures whom 
he was trying to save. 

With all of these things before him we can imagine 
the great and grand Paul sitting down in solitude and 
meditation in the very presence of Jehovah, writing his 
famous epistle to the Romans. He had written thirteen 
whole chapters, and had gotten down to the twenty-first 
verse of the fourteenth chapter when he came to the 
question of the attitude of the Christian people toward 
the drink question. 

As he came to that very grave question the great Spir- 
it hovering over him said :" Paul, write these words 
to the church of the living God that they may be their 
guide throughout all time: ' It is good neither to eat 
fU\sn, nor todi'iFik wine nor (in]i thiiuf whereby thy 
V):other stumbleth, or is offended, or is made wcrV:." 



97 TO ANY 

Then he went on to write: "Hast thou faith? have it 
to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth 
not himself in that thing which he alloweth. 

And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he 
eateth not of faith; for whatsoever is not of faith is sin." 
( Rom. XIV: 21, 22, 23. ) 

Those instructions have lived down through the centu- 
ries and at no time in the Christian era have they been 
more applicable than they are to day. They are the in- 
terpretation of the divine teachings of Jesus Christ con- 
cerning one of the multitudes of questions which have 
been raised from time to time since He was upon earth. 

There ought to be no misunderstanding of those words, 
and all professed Christians should be able to see their 
duty plainly with reference to strong drink. Paul says 
plainly that " It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink 
wine " &c. " whereby thy brother stumbleth." 

If there is any question about the matter of whether 
or not we should be total abstainers it hinges upon the 
one point of whether strong drink causes men to stumble. 

To attempt to prove that the use of strong drink causes 
men to stumble is like proving a self evident truth. It 
has been the curse of ages. Its seductive nature and 
treacherous character caused the great Solomon to say 
" Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whoso- 
ever is deceived thereby is not wise. At last it biteth 
like a serpent and stingeth like an adder." 

But we do not deal with the past. Thousands of the 
victims of strong drink, at last redeemed by the gold 
cures, meet annually and testify to its seductive charac- 
ter. Relating their experiences they tell how, when 
mere boys, they were led by examples of others to drink, 
and that being unable to conquer an appetite fixed uT)on 
them before they had arrived at the age of understanding, 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 98 

they had fallen and suffered until relieved by the good 
Samaritan, Dr Keely. They point with trembling fin- 
gers at the head stones of their comrades, fallen in youth 
into drunkards gi'aves, and of course into a drunkard's 
eternit3\ The news papers are laden with the most 
terrible accounts of cruelties perpetrated by the victims 
of strong drink. The following account, taken from the 
press dispatches is a fair sample of the crimes which 
gi'ow out of the use of liquor : 

Grand Ledge, Mich., Sept. 13. — Since Monday night 
the Forbes & Middleton Theatrical company has been 
playing at Blake's opera house. The senior member of 
the firm is Frank Forbes, a young man 28 years of age, 
who formely resided at Cold water. Forbes is not an 
actor, but is the moneyed and business man of the com- 
pany. 

He started out on a spree yesterday and attended 
strictly to the business of getting drunk all day. He is 
a quarrelsome fellow when drunk, and w^hen he and 
Mrs. Forbes met in their room at the Middleton, about 
6 o'clock last night, a quarrel ensued. Forbes drew a 
revolver and threatened to shoot his wife who, in the 
hope of escaping him, rushed from the room and started 
for the hotel office. She had just reached the head of 
the staircase, when Forbes pulled the trigger. The ball 
struck her in the left side and she fell half way down 
stairs. 

Deputy sherif Holliday was close at hand, and hurry- 
ing to the hotel he sought to arrest Forbes when a des- 
perate encounter ensued. The murderer was fighting 
drunk, and gave the officer a hard battle. Forbes still 
had the revolver with which he shot his wife, and lost 
no time in turning it on Holliday, at whom he fired two 
shots. One of the balls went throuorh the sleeve of the 



99 TO ANY 

officers' coat, grazing but not injuring his wrist, and the 
other passed under his arm, doing him no harm. Forbes 
was finally overpowered and taken to the lockup. 

The doctors who were summoned to attend Mrs. 
Forbes, found that the bullet entered her left side just 
below the short rib, and passed entirely through her 
body, coming out on the right side. It pierced her in- 
testines, thus rendering her recovery impossible. She 
is very weak and failing rapidly. 

From members of the company it was learned that 
Forbes and his wife frequently quarreled when the for- 
mer was drunk, and that on such occasions he invaria- 
bly drew his revolver on her. 

After Forbes was locked up Frank Kendall, a mem-^ 
ber of the troup, entered the jail and said: "Frank, 
you have killed your wife." 

Forbes raised his head and said: "My God! Poor 
littte wife! Never speak to me again." 

Then he sank into a drunken stupor. He slept well 
last night, but today realizes the enormity of his crime. 
He breaks down and sobs piteously every few moments 
and begs to Kendall to shoot him or help him commit 
suicide. The prisoner told Kendall he thought the re- 
volver held blank cartridges. The gun was one he had 
used on the stage and Forbes might have forgotten he 
had loaded it. 

The ladies of the company are prostrated over the 
affair, It is understood that the company will disband 
in Saginaw next week. Mrs. Forbes' mother lives in 
Omaha, Neb. She was telegraphed after the tragedy 
last night and is expected to arrive tomorrow. 

Mrs. Forbes has regained consciousness. She asked 
for her husband and when told he was in jail, wept and 
b^^o'ed piteously for him, saying it made no difference if 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 100 

he did shoot her, she loved bim and wanted to see 
him before she died. A message was dispatched to the 
jail, but Sheriff Green refused to allow the man to see 
liis wife. Members of the troup pleaded with the 
officers to let the dying woman see her husband a mo- 
ment if no longer. . Their request was stoutly refused. 
An appeal was made to prosecuting attorney Maynard, 
he refused. Rev. Mr. Vickers asked the men in the 
name of God to grant the woman her last request on 
earth. The pleadings of the minister fell on deaf ears. 

There is a great deal of indignation here at the re- 
fusal of the officers to allow the dying woman to see her 
husband. " 

Notwithstanding these things there is, to this day, a 
caviling by professed Christians, over the question of 
the duty to abstain from the use of intoxicants. Both 
protestants and catholics are still drinking strong drink 
and arguing in behalf of the moderate use of it. The 
latest utterance in favor of a moderate use of liquor 
comes from Archbishop Gross of Portland, Oregon, in 
the press dispatches: 

SUNDAY BEER. 

Archbishop Gross of Portland, Oregon, in a late in- 
terview, said: 

'•There is nothing fundamentally wrong in drinking 
beer on Sunday, nor does the church forbid it, provided 
it is done with moderation. Liquor is a creation of God 
and was given by him to his people for their use. Its 
abuse is sinful, and it is against this the church is fight- 
ing. Our people are at liberty to drink their beer Sun- 
day as well as any other day. The church is not puri- 
tanical in this matter. In fact, it has no right to say 
what you or I shall drink or what you or I shall eat. It 
has the right to say we shall abstain from meat on cer 




*'THE KILLING OF MRS 
FORBES AT GRAND LEDGE, 
MICH. BY HER DRUNKEN 
HUSBAND. WHERE IS HER 
RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND 
PERSUITOF HAPPINESS."? 



THE SHERIFF REFUSES 
MRS FORBE'S LAST REQUEST 
TO SEE HER HUSBAND BE- 
FORT HER DEATH. " 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 102 

tain days and fast on others, but there its authority 
ends 

"There are many holy priests who drink their wine 
or beer and relisli it, too. The pope himself takes his 
glass of wine. The priests who abstain altogether from 
intoxicating beverages generally do so for the example 
they set. The saloon is another question. The church, 
while it does not forbid it. is fighting it. Realizing 
that it cannot be closed entirely we are directing our ef- 
forts to closing it Sundays. 

* 'Sunday is a day of rest, prayer, meditation and inno- 
cent recreation, and not one of carousing. The inviting 
open door of the Sunday saloon should be closed, for 
through it lies the path to carousal, which is a desecra- 
tion of the day set aside by the Omnipotent for directly 
opposite purposes. 

*'As it is impossible to close the saloon entirely the 
only redemption is for parents to make their homes so 
attractive that their children will be content to remain 
there at night. 

''Could your young folks be made to remain at home 
evenings, much would be done to redeem the world. 
Drunkenness would decrease and the social evil be re- 
duced to a minimum. Keep the young people off the 
street: keep them out of temptation. If they want cards 
and wine give them cards and v»'ine at home. If they 
want recreation of any kind see that they have it, but 
always in moderation. 

"My fondest recollection of my boyhood days is a 
home attractive to me in every way. I had no desire to 
roam the streets or lounge about bar-rooms. No, indeed : 
there was more pleasure at home. My father-rest him, 
Godl-studiod our wants our likos, our very wishes. He 
was not only a father but a x^lay fellow. He could beat 



103 TO ANY 

US all playing cards, and was an expert at all kinds of 
sport, and taught us how to swim, play marbles, spin 
tops and other such games. At our home there was al- 
ways wine to be had, but we all used it in moderation,, 
and it was never denied us. " 

The argument and excuse made for the use of wine, 
and other strong drink, by Archbishop Gross are those 
usually advanced by the drinkers who profess Christian- 
ity, and for that reason we will answer them. 

In the first place he says: "Liquor is a creation of 
God." We emphatically deny that statement. We 
have reference to alcholic liquors. Alcohol is the prod- 
uct of chemical action. There is nothing out of which 
alcohol can be made that has not contained life before 
its conversion into alcohol. There is no record of God's 
making any dead thing out of which alcohol can be 
made. How, then, can it be truthfully said that alco- 
holic "liquor is a creation of God?" It cannot be found 
in nature. 

Again he says: "There are many holy priests wha 
drink their wine or beer and relish it, too. The pope 
himself takes his glass of wine." He says: "If they 
[ the young people ] want cards and wine give them 
cards and wine at home." 

Those are the words of advice coming from an Arch- 
bishop and must have a great influence upon the cus- 
toms of the young people of his church. Let us now 
apply the scriptural test to it, for he says it is right 
and proper to drink ardent spirits. 

Mr. Forbes, the w^ife murderer, just referred to, was 
once an innocent child who had never tasted liquor. 
There came a time in his life when, looking about him, 
he saw men drinking. He read the interviews with his 
church dignitaries in which they advocated the use of 
liquor and actually set tl^e example of drinkiiiir. 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 104 

In his youthful folly he followed the example of these 
men and acquired an appetite for liquor which over- 
mastered his power of self control. Before he had ar- 
rived at the stage of manhood he was a drunkard. He 
repented of his folly and strove to free himself from its 
bondage. Twice did he take the gold cure with a 
hope of gaining relief, but each time the temptations 
which high church dignitaries had helped to place in 
his way, together with the social customs of his associ- 
ates who, in turn, were following the advice and exam- 
ples of church dignitaries, made a temptation greater 
than he could withstand. 

He di-ank the fatal glass, murdered his poor, 
faithful little wife, amid the clinking of the glasses of 
the church dignitaries and the hum of the voices of 
Archbishops as they were being interviewed upon the 
question of temperance. Out of an innocent child was 
created a murderer. No one had ever told him that 
murder was right, but he had been taught that drinking 
was right and he had followed that advice into ruin. 
He "stumbled'' like the thousands of others who think 
they can drink like church dignitaries, and it will not 
be at all surprising if he spends eternity in punishment. 
An innocent and precious life was taken and tears and 
heart ache followed as a result of somebody's teaching 
to that once innocent and always weak boy. 

Does the custom of drinking cause the weak to stum- 
ble? In view of what has been seen and what must be 
known to every intelligent person there can be but one 
answer — yes. Solomon testified to it many times. Did 
he not say these words: "Who hath woe? who hath sor- 
row? who hath contentions? who hath babblings? who 
hath redness of eyes? who hath wounds without cause? 
They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek 



105 TO ANY 

mixed wine." ( Prov. xxlll. 29, 30. ) Centuries before 
Christ's coming Buddha wrote these words: "Thou 
shalt not drink wine or anything that will intoxicate. " 
Homer of Greece, 900 B. C, wrote: " Far from me be 
the gift of Bacchus — pernicious, inflaming wine, that 
weakens both body and mind. " Epictetus wrote: "The 
vine bears three clusters; the first is of pleasure, the 
second of drunkenness, the third insult." Plutarch said: 
"There is never the body of a man, how strong and 
stout soever, if it be troubled and inflamed, but will 
take more harm and offense by wine being poured into 
it." Pliny said: "Wine takes away reason, engenders 
insanity, leads to thousands of crimes, and imposes such 
an enormous expense on nations. " Demosthenes said: 
"To drink well is a property meet for a sponge but not 
for man." Shakespere said: "Every inordinate cup is 
unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil. O that men 
should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their 
brains; that we should with joy, revel, pleasure, and ap- 
plause transform ourselves into beasts." 

Space forbids farther quotation further than to say, 
that Archbishop Gross says that "there is nothing 
fundamentally wrong in drinking beer," but Cardinal 
Manning said: "Prevention of intemperance is not only 
better then cure; but prevention is a duty and cure is a 
lame, halting attempt to undo an evil which we have wil- 
fully permitted." Archbishop Gross says: "Liquor is 
a creation of God and was given by him to his people for 
their use" (as a beverage.) But Father Mathew said: 
"I have no hesitation that strong drink was Anti-Christ; 
it was opposed to the principles of Christ; to His exam- 
ple, to His design, and to His reign. " These two ideas 
are incompatible. Which is right? Which life is the most 
like the life of Christ Father Mathew'sor Archbishop 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 106 

Gross's? P^athor Mathew saw that the use of strong 
drink by the people caused his brothers *'to stumble" 
and in accordance with iho divine hijunction of Paul he 
did not "drink wine '' Was that life not like the recor- 
ded life of Christ? Cardinal Manning said: "If you 
will cut olT the supply of temptation, I will be bound by 
the help of God to convert drunkards; but until you 
have taken off this perpetual supply of intoxicating drink, 
we never can cultivate the fields. You have submerged 
them, and if ever we reclaim one portion, you imme- 
diately begin to build upon it a gin-palace or some tempt- 
ation to drink Let the Legislature do its part and 

we will answer to the rest." Bishop John Ireland says: 
"The great cause of social crime is drink. The great 
cause of poverty is drink. When I hear of a family 
broken up and ask the cause — drink. If I go to the 
gallows and ask its victims the cause, the answer — drink. 
Then I ask myself in perfect wonderment, why do not men 
put a stop to this thing? "Father Mathew further says: 
"Let no man tell me that he is safe enough, that he has 
no occasion to take the pledge, that he is above tempt- 
ation. There is not one strong enough or firm enough 
to resist temptation; no one is so strong or firm that he 
may not fall. I have seen the stars of heaven fall and 
the cedars of Lebanon laid low. I have seen the proud - 
est boasters humbled to the dust, steeped to the very 
lips in poverty and sunk in dishonored graves." John 
B. Gough, Lou J. Beauchamp, John G. Woolley and 
the thousands of patients of the gold cures Sanitariums 
bring forward their testimony which tells of temptation 
and ruination by taking the advice of such men as Arch- 
bishop Gross. Yet, with all these evidences of "stumb- 
ling" on every hand, Archbishop Gross and other pro- 
fessed Christians; bothprotestant and catholic, come for- 



107 TO ANY 

ward with the Bible opened to the XIV. chapter of 
Romans and with their fingers upon the 21st verse they 
say: ''There is nothing fundamentally wrong in drink- 
ing beer on Sunday, nor does the church forbid it, pro- 
vided it is done with moderation. Liquor is a creation of 
God and was given by Him to His people for their use. " 

Is it possible that such persons as the Archbishop do 
not know that the custom of drinking strong drink 
causes men to stumble? He cannot sit in the confes- 
sionals in a large city one single day without receiving 
the testimony of men to the effect that this custom leads 
them astray. A man must be ignorant, indeed, of what 
is going on in the world, and to what men have testified, 
who does not know that the custom of drinking strong 
drink is causing his brothers "to stumble," or "offend,'' 
or be "made weak." 

But suppose men do know these things and still insist 
upon drinking liquor — what then? Let us apply the last 
two verses of the said XIV. chapter of such cases and 
ascertain: "Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before 
God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that 
thing which he allov/eth." 

"And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because 
he eateth not of faith; for whatsoever is not of faith is 
sin." (Rom. XIV. 22, 23.) 

Archbishop Gross, if you and other professed Chris- 
tians know that the custom of drinking causes weak men 
and women to become fallen, sitting under the judgment 
of those two verses, what will become of you and them, 
if you and they still insist upon drinking "wine" or 
"anything whereby thy brother stumblethor is offended, 
or is made weak? " If you do know it and still continue 
to set the example, which you openly admit you do, there 
can be but one of two concl asions arrived at, and that 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 108 

is, that you and they will either pass ' ' under condem- 
nation" or Paul, the great apostle, wrote a falsehood. 

The same conclusion must be arrived at in the cases 
of men who rent their property for saloon and other 
immoral purposes, or who sign petitions for the grant- 
ing of licenses, or who vote for men who will make 
license law^s to license the very thing that causes men 
to stumble. 

Paul says nothing of compromises nor of policy. He 
assumes that men live in the present and are responsi- 
ble for every act w^hich they perform all through life. 
We have to do with the evils of our day. We cannot 
knowingly place temptation before men nor set an evil 
example without invoking that judgment which we 
know is promised in advance. Nor can we stop with 
the first step in the right direction. We must follow 
the right course through to the end. ' Chis reasoning 
applies to the way men should vote as well as to any- 
thing else. It is not our purpose to tell anyone w^hat 
party ticket they should vote, because party i:)latforms 
change from time to time. But applying the principles 
laid down by Paul w^e are forced to take the position 
maintained by the Methodist Ej)iscopal church, 
namely: While we do not presume to dictate what 
ticket a man shall vote, yet we hold that ''no politi- 
cal party has a right to expect or ought to receive the 
support of christian men so long as it stands committed 
to the license jwlicy or refuses to put itself on record in 
an attitude of open hostility to the saloon." That 
seems to me like sound doctrine. Which is the greater 
anyhow^ the party or the voters? "Shall the mountain 
go to Mohomet or shall Mahomet go to the mountain?" 
Shall the party platform conform to the views of the 
voter, or shall the voter conform to the party? 



109 TO ANY 

Could a professed Christian gain the approbation of 
Christ and Paul, his greatest champion, who would 
open his bible to those verses and with his finger upon 
them deposit a ballot with the other hand which means 
license? We have no conception of Christ nor of Paul 
if their approval would go with such a person. 

If we are to credit the thousands of newspaper dis- 
patches; if we are to believe the testimony of the unfor- 
tunate Keely patients, together with the testimony of 
John B. Gough, Father Mathew, Bishop Foster, Dr. 
Talmage, Bishop John Ireland, Abraham Lincoln, Hor- 
ace Greeley, Rev. Joseph Cook, Father Cleary, General 
Clinton B. Fisk, Dr. Richardson, Dr. Davis, Archdea- 
con Farrar and Cardinal Manning, we are bound to 
believe that the licensed saloon causes thousands "to 
stumble" and be "made weak.'' If their testimony is 
true — and who shall say " it is false " — then under Paul's 
ruling, what is to become of the man who votes a ticket 
which stands for license? 

When the average professed Christian voter is brought 
to this point he begins to "hedge" and find excuses for 
his inconsistent conduct. He usually begins by saying: 
"You [meaning everybody but himself] can't succeed. 
Prohibition will not prohibit if you could get it. You 
can't prohibit it, so the next best thing is to license it." 

My professed Christian friend, let me call your atten- 
tion to a few things. Do you really believe the bible, 
and are you really in the church because jow believe in 
it? If so turn to the XV. chapter of John, seventh verse, 
before you say: "It can't be prohibited." "If ye abide 
in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye 
will, and it shall be done unto you." Those are sup- 
posed to be God's own words, as v^ritten by his servant, 
John. To deny that they are not His words is to deny 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 



110 



- o 










^ife^ftrlj . /^ 



1^ 




Ill TO ANY 

the Bible. To admit that they are the words of God, 
and yet say that the liquor traffic "can't be prohibited," 
is to look God in the face and say: "God, You did not 
mean what You said and You cannot redeem Your prom- 
ises," or else it is an open confession that "ye" do not 
"abide in me, and my words" do not "abide in you." In 
what a position do such statements, made by pro- 
fessed Christians, put the Bible before skeptics, infidels 
and atheists. Who wonders that there are unbelievers 
when prof essed Christians deny the promises made by 
God in the Bible. 

There have always been Pharisees and through them 
God does not seem to promise reformation, for the con- 
dition precedent which He fixes is, that ' 'ye abide in me 
and my words abide in you." In all probability if the 
professed Christians would purge themselves of all 
Pharisaical impurities, and put themselves within 
those conditions precedent, so that God could use them 
as He wishes. He would answer their prayers, if they 
should pray for the removal of Uie traffic; for did He not 
say: "Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done 
unto you?" But just so long as the professed church of 
God "resolves" against the liquor traffic and that liquor 
traffic remains, there will be a lingering susiDicion in the 
minds of skeptics and infidels that the Bible is either 
not true, or that professed Christians are not fulfilling 
those conditions precedent found in the seventh verse 
of the fifteenth chapter of John. 

If we have any conception of the duties of ]3rof essed. 
Christians and God's practical methods of doing things, 
the condition precedent which he has fixed and to which 
he refers is a pure, straightforward and honest life in 
His sight, coujDled with a ballot that dees not represent, 
the liquor traffic. How, short of a miracle, can God. 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 112 

fulfill His promises made in that chapter, with His pro- 
fessed followers inarching and voting with the forces 
of darkness, wrong and error? 

For the sake of making still plainer the duties of 
itizens we will divide them up into two classes: The 
politicians and the voters. The only duty which the 
present politicians seem to take upon themselves is the 
duty of finding out how popular oi:)inion is running and 
then to trim their sails so as to conform to that breeze, 
without any regard for their own opinions, if they have 
any. The ostensible and real duty of the voter is to 
ascertain what the real interests of his country are, and 
then carry those convictions to the ballot box and 
represent them with a ballot. What are supposed to be 
the convictions of a voter who votes for a license policy? 
One of the greatest troubles with the present time is 
that the average voter has transformed himself into a 
politician, until we have got almost as many poli- 
ticians as plain voters. Instead of standing for what 
they really want we see them shaking their heads and 
saying to God: "You did not mean what You said. 
You cannot redeem Your promises, and it cannot be pro- 
hibited, never, never, never,'' etc, etc, etc. 

Instead of standing solidly together for what they 
know to be right, we see these voters at the polls every 
four years, on the fii'st Week in November, and, be- 
hold, from six to eight millions of them, standing 
around the polls, acknowledge that the liquor trafiic is 
a bad thing but say that "the people [meaning them- 
selves of course ] are not educated up to prohibition," 
and that until they are, the traffic will have to be 
licen.sed." 

It is enough to make graven images weep to see a 
clean majority of voters standing around the polls, and 



113 TO ANY 

shaking their heads like donkeys declare that ' 'it never 
can be done, it never can be done," etc, etc, etc. 

My respected friend, what we need today is more 
plain voters and less so called politicians; more men 
who know what they want and who will vote for what 
they want. We have plenty of the socalled states- 
men who are willing to let the people have what they 
want for the offices which are at their disposal. If you 
and I give an office to a so called statesman, if we have 
any sensible or rational purpose in so doing, it must be 
because he is to represent our ideas, otherwise we might 
just as well be born imbeciles with no knowledge of w^hat 
we need. The good man who does not vote for what he 
wants and for what he knows to be right throws his 
vote away in the most foolish possible manner, does not 
do his duty, leaves the country unprotected, invites 
pluhder and ruination, and deserts humanity and God. 



'They are slaves who will not choose, 

Hatred, scoffing and abuse, 

Rather than in silence shrink 

From the truth they needs must think, 

They are slaves who dare not he 

In the right with two or three." 

— I Longfellow ] 



The professed Christian who votes for the license 
policy or who is silent on this great evil because he is 
afraid it will hurt his business, it seems to me, is accumu- 
lating wealth at the expense of God and his own future 
welfare, for it is a race after mammon ' 'which moth and 
rust doth corrupt and thieves break through and steal," 
instead of "laying up treasures" etc. Let him with the 
beloved Whittier say: 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 



114 



"In God's own ml^lit 

"VVe gird us for the coinI:i:4 fljrhf . 

And, stronj? In Him whosf causo Is ours 

In conflict with unholy powers, 

Wo srasp the woiipons Ho lias jrivon : 

The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven. 

Yours most respectfully. 




115 TO ANY 



Grand Rapids, Mich., Aug. 31, 1895 

TO EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN, 

UNIONTOWN, U. S. A. : 

Dear Sir:- 

Believing that every good citizen should t<5 
interested in every question which affects any consider- 
able number of persons for good or ill, and having 
full confidence in the integrity of the American people 
to right the wrongs of each other and of the nation, I 
address the following appeal to you, asking you to give 
it the thought and consideration due to it. 

The first thing which should be done in all cases, upon 
the proposition to found or maintain an institution in a 
community, is to make a careful inquiry into its charac- 
ter, its purposes and its probable effect upon the com- 
munity. The thrusting of any institution upon any 
community without first considering the effect which it 
will have upon the property, h<^alth and lives of in- 
nocent and unwilling members might be characterized 
as reckless and unpatriotic. To force into the company 
of any man who ties his future and the future of his 
children to the guarantees of the constitution of the 
United States, of life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness to himself and his posterity, an institution which 
endangers his own property and life, and the lives and 
morals of his children, cannot well be justified upon 
mere private grounds. The very term "personal lib- 
erty" implies this. The right to live does not mean the 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 



115 




Drinker — You are interfering with my personal 
liberty by closing the saloons. 

Honest Citizen — But they endanger the lives and 
morals of my children; they corrupt my neighbors, and 
propose one chance in 14 during my life of mur- 
dering me. 

Drinker — That don't cut any figure with me. My 
right to drink is just as great as the right of you and 
your children to live. 



117 TO ANY 

right to kill. The right to enjoyment does not mean 
the right to outrage a neighbor. The right to drink 
water, even, does not carry with it the right to leave an 
open well by the wayside to endanger the lives of an 
innocent neighbor and his children. The right to drink 
liquor does not carry with it the right to set up a saloon 
as a resort for criminals and a place for selling of grog 
which makes criminals and which, in turn, threatens the 
lives and property of the innocent citizens of the commun- 
ity. In accordance with that principle the United States 
Supreme Court has decided that the right to sell liquor 
does not inhere in any one, but that the right, if had at 
all, must be given to him by the people which consti- 
tute the state. [ U. S. Supreme Court in California vs. 
Chris tensen.] 

If the right to operate a saloon is obtained from the 
people each individual is called upon to decide for him- 
self whether he is willing to grant such right. He thus 
directly -assumes his share of the responsibility in 
the matter for all that it does and as to him it is the 
whole responsibility. This brings the matter directly 
to every man to decide for himself. There is no middle 
ground upon which to stand. If the liquor traffic is 
actually maintained in the interest of the people, then 
it should stay. But if it takes away the lives and prop- 
erty of innocent third persons to the contract, without 
giving to society sufficient reasons for so doing, then it 
it should go, and every self respecting man who loves 
right and hates wrong should do all in his power to 
make it go. 

We have shown in the preceding chaiDters that the 
liquor traffic could not be ojDerated financially to the 
advantage of the country, but on the contrary that it is 
liarmf ul to a great degree ; that it lives off of productive 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 118 

labor, as a parasite lives, taking millions of dollars out 
of the channels of rational and useful business without 
giving back a valuable equivalent. We have found it a 
very unprofitable institution, thrust upon innocent peo- 
])le without their consent, and demanding of them that 
Mu'ough taxation they must care for its results. Thous- 

luls of them are objecting to its continuance, and unless 
we can find further reasons for its maintenance it would 
seem like a barbarous outrage to longer force it upon, 
them. 

There might be two reasons for the perpetuation of 
this traf&c, one a financial and the other a moral reason. 
But we have seen that it is a great burden upon 
the people when considered from a financial point of 
^'iew. There can be but one more reason for its con- 

1 nuance and that is the moral; and now we propose to 
examine that part of the question and see if we can 
find reasons suflicient to justify us in continuing it. 

It is immoral to commit a crime. Whatever produces 
crime produces immorality. An institution which pro- 
duces crime cannot justify its existence upon the ground 
of morals. It has long been claimed by the opponents 
of the liquor traftic, that it was the promoter and gen- 
erator of crime and misdemeanors. A full knowledge of 
this fact caused the London Times to say that * ' strong 
drink produces more idleness, crime, disease, want and 
misery than all other causes put together." Lord Chief 
Baron Kelly declared that "two-thirds of the crimes 
which come before the courts of law in this country 
[England] are occasioned chiefly by intemperance.'* 
Lord Acton, Supreme Judge of Rome, said: ''Nearly 
all the crimes in Rome originate in wine."' Col. Dawes, 
of the Bengal Artillery, said: "My experience is that 

early all the crime affecting our European troops in 



119 TO ANY 

India has originated in the use of spirituous liquors. '» 
Carroll D. Wright, United States Labor Commissioner, 
after he had studied the statistics of the whole country 
for years, said: " Ninety-two per cent of our crimes is 
the result of intoxicating liquors." The Supreme Court 
of the United States, consisting of men, who for years 
had sat upon the bench in the trial of cases in the lower 
courts and who had access to statistics of the whole 
world, handed down the following as a part of their 
decisions, in the case of Mugler vs. the State of Kansas: 
*' For we cannot shut out of view the fact within the 
knowledge of all that the public health, the public mor- 
als, and the public safety may be endangered by the 
general use of intoxicating drinks; nor the facts estab" 
lished by statistics accessible to every one, that the 
disorder, pauperism, and crime prevalent in the country 
are, in some degree at least, traceable to this evil." 

Again, they said in the case of California vs. Christen- 
sen that "the injury, it is true, falls upon him in his 
health, which the habit undermines; in his morals, which 
it weakens; in his self abasement which it creates. But 
as as it leads to neglect of business and waste of prop- 
erty and general demoralization, it affects those who are 
immediately connected with him and dependent upon 
him. By the general concurrence of opinion of every 
civilized and christian community there are few sources 
of crime and misery to society equal to the dram shop. 
The statistics of every state show a greater amount of 
crime and misery attributable to the use of ardent spirits 
obtainable at these retail liquor saloons, than to any 
other source." 

Says the Detroit Evening News of March 30, 1895: 
*' During 1894 there were 9, 45Q persons committed to 
jail and reformatories in Ontario, as against 8,619 in 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 120 

1893. Criminal outrages doubled last year. Attempts 
at suicide more than doubled; arson increased more than 
forty per cent; bigamy nearly fifty per cent; while i)er- 
jury increased over 200 per cent. There were 3,190 
temperate and 6,260 intemperate persons committed." 

The New York Evening Post makes the report, which 
is confirmed by the United States Consul's report to the 
Hon. W. F. Wharton. Assistant Secretory of State, in 
1893: 

DRUNKENNESS IN BELGIUM — ENORMOUS INCREASE IN 
CRIME AND INSANITY. 

There has been an extraordinary increase of late in 
the consumption of alcoholic liquors in Belgium. This 
fact was brought out very clearly in a discussion on the 
subject which occurred recently in the chambers. M. 
Lejune, former minister of justice, declared that the 
nation was reverting to a new form of barbaraism which 
could only be described by the term alcoholic barbarism. 

From statistics furnished by him, it appears that the 
revenue from the excise, which amounted to 4,000,000 
francs in 1851, has now reached the total of 33,000,000; 
that during the same period the number of public houses 
has increased from 53,000 to 175,000, and that the 
annual consumption of spirits is at the rate of 12 litres 
per adult. His figures show that from 1851 to 1888 
criminality increased at the rate of 200 per cent, and 
insanity at the rate of 138 per cent. , and that of the 
community eighty can be traced to alcoholic causes. M. 
Lejune attributes this disastrous state of things to two 
causes. The first is the insufficiency of the food procur- 
able by the working classes, and the second the poison- 
ous quality of Ihe spirits purchased by them. 



121 TO ANY 

Geo. H. Wallace, U. S. Consul General, at Melbourne. 
Australia, on March 21, 1893, in a communication sent 
to Hon. Wm. F. Wharton, assistant Secretary of State, 
said: "From the evidence of those best qualified to 
give an opinion — judges, police magistrates, and the 
governors and chaplains of the gaols — it appears that 
from three-fourths to nine-tenths of Australian crime is 
due to drink. The balance of testimony leans toward 
the higher estimate. 

The same kind of information comes from the consuls 
in Mexico, Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Belgium and 
many others. 

It would seem from these reports of the various con- 
suls, that the curse of intemperance is greatest among 
the English and French speaking peojole. In fact, in 
our own land the alcoholic curse is at high tide. We 
have thus far not been able to secure any data from 
w4iich any exact conclusions regarding the relation of 
intemperance to crime can be drawn. That it is a gen- 
erator of crime few people of intelligence deny, the only 
question being the extent. Its demoralizing influ- 
ences have been felt to such an extent that to protect 
the rising generation against its ravages nearly every 
state in the union has adopted laws compelling the 
teaching in all the public schools the evil effects of 
alcohol upon the human system. New York is the latest 
state to adopt such a law, and although Governor Mor- 
ton, himself, is proprietor of the "Shoreham" House, 
Washington, D. C. , which has a bar or buffet in connec- 
tion with it; and while every pressure conceivable was 
brought to bear upon him and the legislature in opposi- 
tion to the measure, the necessity for the adoption and 
the wisdom of the law were so apparent that he readily 
signed the bill. Strange to say there was one so-called 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. \22 

religious " paper of thc^ state opposed to it. It has not 
yet been ascertained where the editor got his " inspird- 
tion" from. 

Anti- liquor legislation lias never been popular with 
the various legislatures of the several states, and the 
passage of such measures has invariably been stoutly 
opposed by the liquor element. But the danger of liquor 
selling and liquor drinking to the state has become so 
alarming, and in view of what statistics have shown, so 
apparent that these legislators have sought to check it 
in the very sensible way of teaching to the children its 
ovil effects. 

Can it be truthfully said that these lavrs have been 
forced through these legislatures by the temperance ele- 
ment? In view of the fact that these temperance meas- 
ures are unpopular with the average legislature it is 
quite remarkable that these laws should have been 
passed at all. In their passage these legislatures have 
tacitly admitted the dangerous and destructive charac- 
ter of the liquor traffic, and have deliberately testified to 
it in these acts. What could be a stronger testimonial 
of a man's belief than the solemn enactment of a law? 
Judging by the expressed opinions of the legislatures of 
nearly all the states in the union, the use of liquor is a 
thing to be shunned and avoided . 

The history of the human race for four thousand years 
and the observations of every intelligent legislator 
affii-ms that these laws are just and right. I select a 
]:)aragraph from Steele's Elementary Treatise on 
Hygiene and Physiology, published by the American 
Book Comjiany, so as to meet the requirements of the 
law passed by the legislatures of the several states as 
we have described. On page 131 of his abridged edition 
we find the following paragraph: ''Along with this 



123 TO ANY 

mental degradation comes also a failure of the moral 
sense. The fine fiber of character undergoes a ' degen- 
eration ' as certain as that of the muscles themselves. 
The broken promises tell of a lower standard of truth 
and a dull sense of honor, quite as much as of an 
impaired will. Conscience is lulled to rest. Reason is 
enfeebled. Customary restraints are thrown off. The 
sensibilities are blunted. There is less ability to appre- 
ciate nice shades of right and wrong. Great moral 
principles and motives lose their power to influence. 
The better nature has been dethroned." 

' ' The wretched victim of appetite will now gratify 
his passions for drink at any expense of deceit or crime. 
He becomes the blind instrument of his insane impulses 
and commits acts from which he would once have 
shrunk with horror. Sometimes he even takes a malig- 
nant pleasure in injuring those whom nature has 
ordained he should protect." 

This is only a fair sample of what the law says sliall 
be taught in the schools of the land. Most states do not 
allow a text book on the subject to be used in the public 
schools until it has first received the approval of the 
State Board of Education. 

Why, in the face of the unpopularity of temperance 
measures, did these legislatures pass these laws? The 
reason is plain, namely: The steady increase in the 
consumption of strong drink over the increase of popu- 
lation, and the corresponding increase in crime, made it 
apparent that a change must be made in the customs 
and character of the people, or that the end of our 
republic would soon be reached. There has been an 
increase in the consumption of alcoholic drinks from 
6.45 gallons in 1863 to 18 gallons per capita in 1893, while 
the population increased only from 33,955,858 to 65,115,- 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 



124 



544; or in other 'sv(>rds, wliile tho po])ulation only 
doubled, the consumption in strong drink increased 
about six fold. (Census and Revenue reports.) 

In the name of the nation let me ask you where such 
a course will lead us? Follow it through to its logical 
conclusion, and where v/ill that ratio of increase, if con- 




Saloon Keeper—' 'Ve vill obbose dem dembrance 

INSTRUCTKSHUNS FOR VE VANTS DESE KIDS FOR OUR 
CUSTOMERS VEN DEY GETS PIGGER.'' 



tinued, take you? Can drunkards maintain a civilization 
like ours? These facts furnish food for pleasant 
thoughts to none save the soulless and Godless gin 
makers and gin sellers and their equally depraved 
followers. 



125 TO ANY 

It was largely because of this threatening danger that 
the states passed these laws, hoping in so doing that 
through the intelligence and higher morals of the com- 
ing generations it could be averted. Notwithstanding 
the great danger threatening society by this demoraliz- 
ing and disintegrating traffic no law against this evil 
was ever more bitterly opposed by the traffic, its emis- 
saries and dupes, than the one just passed by the State 
of New York. So rapacious has this traffic become it 
now stands ready to oppose even the teaching to little 
children the lessons of abstinence from the drink which 
ruins more lives than any other enemy of the human 
family. In other words, they oppose putting up danger 
signals so that the little children of the land might not 
be destroyed by the pitfalls which these men strew 
along their pathway. Not being content with their fight 
against prohibition they fight moral suasion as well as 
science, philosophy and truth with a viciousness simply 
shocking to rational human beings. 

The appalling increase in crime is sufficient reason for 
the concern which sober legislators have felt in this 
matter, for they as well as the various philanthropic 
organizations, which have for their object the preven- 
tion of crime, such as the National Conference of Chari- 
ties and Corrections, have struggled with the question 
for years, and view with much discouragement the 
increase of crime over all combined efforts to check it. 
According to the reports of the census in 1870 there 
were 38,558,371 inhabitants in the country with 32,901 
criminals in the penal institutions, or one convict to 
every 1,171 persons. In 1880 there were 50,155,783 
inhabitants, with 59,255 in the reformatories, or one to 
every 846 of population; and in 1890 there were 62,622,- 
250 inhabitants with 83,329 Convicts, or one convict to 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 12(3 

pvery 760 of population. This is an increase of thirty- 
tive percent in crime over the increase in population for 
twenty years. 

Besides that, there were 14,840 juveniles in the refor- 
matories in 1>^90 as against 11,340 for 1880, making 97-, 
175 persofts in our penal institutions on June 1st, 1890, 
or one person to every 644 of population. This by no 
means includes the number of persons who have violated 
the law during the year, and were thus offenders of it. In 
addition to the above showing, which alone is bad enough, 
the eleventh census discloses the fact that on June 
1st, 1890, there were 73,045 persons in pauper houses 
and 112,263 in public and private benevolent institutions 
exclusive of the insane, blind and feeble-minded, making 
a total of 185,308, or one person supported by charity to 
every 338 of population. There were also 106, 254 patients 
in the insane asylum, or one person for every 589 of 
lx)pulation, as against 37,432 for the year 1870, and 91,- 
997 for 1880, or a gain of 183 percent in twenty years. 
For the feeble minded the census of 1870 shows 24,537: 
for 1880, 76,895; and for 1890, 95,571, or a gain of 289 
percent in twenty years; or one feeble minded person 
for every 655 of population. 

By a little computation it will be seen that for every 
129 of population there was, for the year 1890, either an 
insane, feeble minded, indigent or criminal person, and 
the ratio in each class increasing from two to fifteen 
percent per annum over the increase of population. 
Not a pleasant thing to contemplate. Do you wonder 
that there are pessimists and cranks? 

Again there were 984 murders committed in the year 
1860, or one murder for every 31,954 of population, while 
for the year 1890 there were 7,351 murders committed, 
or one murder for every 8,518 of population. This is an 



127 TO ANY 

increase in that crime of 375 per cent, over the 
increase of population in a period of thirty years of 
time 

For the year 1894 there were 9,800 murders commit- 
ted, or an increase of 33 per cent, in four years. There 
was, then, one person murdered in the year 1894, out of 
every 6,632 people, with the rate increasing at the rate 
of eight per cent, per annum. Is that not alarming? 
Let me ask you what shall eventually become of our 
society? Carry that ratio through far enough and the 
end arrived at is ruin. This is not a theory but a con- 
dition that confronts us. There is no use of crying 
"pessimist, pessimist" when the earth is drenched with 
human blood. . We do not wish to magnify these things. 
They are large enough without it to frighten any but 
the sluggard. Think of it: should you live thirty years 
longer there will be one chance in 221 that you will be 
murdered. If you have a wife and you both live thirty 
years there will be one chance in 110 that either of you 
will be murdered; and if you have a wife and two chil- 
dren and you alllive to be thirty years older there will be 
one chance in 55 that one of your number will be mur- 
dered during those years. If you have in addition to a 
wife and two children three brothers and sisters with 
each a husband and wife, and each lives thirty years 
longer there will be one chance in 22 that some one of 
you will be murdered. I call your attention to these 
facts. The computation is simple. There are supposed 
to be about 65,000,000 people in the United States. 
There were 9,800 murders committed in the country last 
year. At that rate there would be 294,000 people mur- 
dered in the United States in thirty years. You would 
stand the 1-65,000,000 part of 294,000 of being murdered, 
or one chance in 221. There would be ten times the risk 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 128 

for ten persons that there would be for one person, and 
>o on. 

Think of the slaughter ui l'U4,uui> innocent persons by- 
red-handed murderers in the short space of thirty years. 
What a commentary upon the civilization of today. Do 
you wish to see this status continue? If you do, you 
have only to remain passive and satisfaction shall be 
y(>ur>. 

We make no claim that the liquor trafiic is resjoonsible 
for the whole of this trouble. There is plenty of room 
entirely outside of that realm for all the philanthropic 
workers who are already engaged in the work of refor- 
ming criminals. But we do claim that the said traffic is 
resjxjnsible for the largest share of it. Facts can be 
gathered on every hand to prove that assertion. 

I have before me the report of the Attorney General 
for the State of Michigan, for the year 1893, and it 
shows that out of the 18,974 persons prosecuted during 
the year, 3,894, or twenty percent of them, were prose- 
cuted for such offenses as "tippling" "drunkenness," 
"drunk and disorderly,'' and for the violation of the 
liquor laws. Besides that, there were 4,272 "unclassi- 
fied disorderlies," eighty percent of which could be safely 
charged up to the liquor business. There were also 
3,501 prosecutions for assaults and 1,281 for vagrancy. 
The remaining number, 6,026, are for homicide, man- 
slaughter, larceny, arson, burglary, false pretenses, 
robbery, perjury, etc. 

The statistics relative to crime, carefully classified by 
honest and competent officials, show that there are four 
persons arrested for some sort of violation of the law 
against drunkenness to one of any other kind of disor- 
derly conduct, unless vagrants be classed as "disorder- 
lies;" and in an intelligent classification there is no such 



129 TO ANY 

thing as " unclassified disorderly " persons. Every dis- 
orderly is some kind of a disorderly subject to some 
kind of a definite classification, and there must be some 
kind of a classification for every offense. 

Taking the 3,894 persons prosecuted for some kind of 
offense against the liquor laws or growing directly out 
of liquor, with 80 percent of the so-called unclassified 
disorderlies, or 3,317, and 50 percent of the assaults, of 
the 1,281 vagrants — which any well informed and can- 
did police official will admit is a low estimate — together 
with 50 percent of the remaining 6,026 offenses, and we 
will have a total of 12,614 prosecutions out of the 18,- 
974, chargeable to the liquor traffic, or 66 percent of the 
whole. 

This is a low estimate, according to the opinion of 
Warden Fuller of the Ionia prison, which contains 550 
prisoners. Mr. Fuller, being acquainted with the rec- 
ord of every prisoner in the prison, gave as his opinion 
''that 999 out of every 1,000 come to the prison directly 
or indirectly on account of whisky. " (Reported in the 
Grand Rapids Evening Press, Aug. 17, 1895.) 

In the report of Superintendent O'Mara of the police 
department of Pittsburg (found in the report of the 
department of Public Safety, for the year 1894, on page 
301) the causes for the murders committed are given, 
and out of the nine cases reported with the causes given, 
five are for "intoxication" and "drink," or 55 percent. 
The other causes are "jealousy" and "accident," and 
no one knows how much "drink" figured in those case. " 

When the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, present United 
States Labor Commissioner, was chief of the Massa- 
chusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, he made a com- 
plete classification of all the sentences in Massachusetts 
for the twenty years, 1860 to 1879. The number of sen- 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 130 

tences aggregated 578,458, of which 21,859 were common 
drunkards; 271,482 were for drunkenness; 12,240 for 
liquor selling; 26,423 for liquor keeping; 636 for liquor 
carrying; 8,174 for liquor nuisances, or a total of sen- 
tences for liquor offenses of 340,814, or about 59 per 
cent, of the sentences for all offenses. Mr. Wright then 
set about to find what portion of the remaining 41 per 
cent, of offenses could be traced to the liquor traffic. He 
took the county of Suffolk in which the the city of Bos- 
ton is situated, and found that for the year running 
fi'om September 1st, 1879, to September 1st, 1880, there 
were 16,897 commitments in that county alone. Out of 
that number he found that 12,289 offenses were plain 
*'rum offenses," or 72 per cent., leaving 4,608 cases for 
analysis. He employed reliable agents to look up the 
individual records of each sej^arate case and to watch 
the trials of the same, under his immediate supervision. 
It was found that out of the 4,608 cases thus investi- 
gated 2,097 of these offenders w^ere under the influence 
of liquor when the offense was committed; 1,918 were 
under its influence when the criminal intent was formed; 
1,184 were dissipated characters with blunted moral sen- 
sibilities; and 821 were led to commit their offenses 
through the influence of other liquor agencies. Taking 
simply the 2,097 cases in which the offenders were under 
the influence of liquor at the time of the commission of 
their respective o^'fenses, (and without the 1,918 cases 
in which the offender was under the influence of liquor 
when he foi*med his criminal intent — for intent is the 
chief element to be considered in the commission of 
crime) we see that out of the total number of 16, 897 cases 
mentioned, 14.?,% vrere peculiarly rum cases, making 
85 per cent, of the whole. This is why the United States 
Commissioner of Labor said, " eighty five per cent, of 



131 TO ANY 

our crime is the result of intoxicating liquors." (T^rn 
perance Shot and Shell, p. 22.) 

The police report for the city of Cincinnati for the 
year 1894 shows that out of the 15,595 arrests for var- 
ious offenses, 3,564 were for drunkenness and for viola- 
tion of the liquor laws, or 22 per cent. There were 
1,886 cases of unclassified disorderlies besides 1,882 
arrests for "loitering," which is more commonly called 
"idle and disorderly." Eighty per cent, of the last two 
numbers, together with fifty per cent, of the remaining 
gives 68 per cent, of the whole due to drink. 

The department of Public Safety for the city of 
Indianapolis for the year 1894, reports 6,604 arrests by 
the police force, and out of that number 2,076 were for 
drunkenness, "drunks and other charges," and violat- 
ing the liquor laws, or 31 per cent. Then there were 
619 "vagrants," 444 "loiterers," 818 "assault and bat- 
tery," 211 "prostitutes," and 246 arrests for " associat- 
ing with prostitutes," making 2,338 of this class of 
arrests. They are all so closely connected with drunk- 
enness that we hardly know what per cent, of them to 
place in the drink column. Surely not less than 75 per 
cent. Fifty per cent, of the remainder would give 74 
per cent of all offenses committed due to drink. The 
police report of St. Louis for 1894 shows 20,756 arrests 
for violating the laws of the city, of which 3,339 arrests 
were for "drunk on the street," 6,014 for "disturbing 
the peace," 569 for "canning beer," 470 for "loitering 
on the street corner," making of this class of cases, 
which are almost wholly "rum" cases, 49 per cent. of the 
whole number of cases. In addition to that there were 
2,865 arrests for "inmates of bawdy houses," 287 other 
arrests for violation of the laws against prostitution. In 
addition to this kind of offenses there were 534 assaults. 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 132 

with intent to kill, 494 for burglary and larceny, 1,778 
for larceny, 25 for murder, 134 for highway robbery, 
etc., showing crimes of the worst character running 
rampant in the city. Besides this the police seem to 
take good care of the bums of the city, for which the 
said bums should be deeply grateful. On page 625 of 
the Police Report it will be seen that the police escorted 
3,229 of them home. We have heard of legislatures 
voting themselves large sums to take them on a junket- 
ing trip to some desired spot, but this is the first tune 
that we have heard of maintaining a public escort at 
public expense to see the bums of the town "safe 
home." How nice and convenient that must be! We 
wonder why it was that all of the bums were not escorted 
home. 

Taking all together all cases of arrest by the police 
for violation of state and city laws there are found to be 
24,793, or one arrest for every twenty of population in 
the city. Is not that a shocking state of affairs? They 
make the claim that .there were many of these "tran- 
sients " but the facts are, that while St. Louis is arrest- 
ing the "transients"' of Denver and Chicago, Chicago 
and Denver are also arresting the " transients " of St. 
Louis, and seem to have their hands pretty full, too, 
judging from their reports. It must be remembered 
that these are the very cities which furnish the ' ' tran- 
sients." The country does not do it. In his annual 
letter to the Board of Police, Chief of Police Harrigan 
takes occasion to congratulate them upon the decrease 
of public drunkenness. (See page 612.) Evidently the 
decrease in "public drunkenness" has been the result 
of the " slight of hand " performer's work of changing 
the "public drunkards" into private drunkards with a 
P'lblir oscort. 



133 TO ANY 

The police report for the city of Detroit shows that 
there were 7,050 arrests in that city for the year ending 
July 1, 1895, for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, 
and for the violation of the liquor laws, out of a total or 
11,762 arrests, or about 60 per cent. Allowing but 50 
per cent, of all the remaining misdemeanors and offenses 
due to liquor, we would still have 80 per cent, of all 
offenses committed in that city due to liquor. The 
Police Report for the city of Chicago for 1894, shows 
88,823 arrests during the year. Of this number 19,827 
arrests were for disorderly conduct and violation of the 
liquor laws, making 56 per cent, of the whole 
number of arrests due to strong drink. Besides this 
there were 6,018 arrests for various kinds of assault. 
Taking the 56 per cent, of arrests due to liquor and 
allowing but 50 per cent, of all remaining offenses due 
to liquor, and we will have 78 per cent, of all the arrests 
in Chicago for the year 1894 due to liquor. Chicago 
has a bonafide population of 1,500,000, and with 
88,333 arrests for the year there would be one person 
arrested for every 16 of population. That also shows a 
nice state of affairs for a modern city founded in the 
nineteenth centuiy. Chicago has at least 6,000 saloons. 
She also had 71 arrests for assaults to commit rape, 99 
for assault with intent to rob; 578 assaults with intent 
to kill; 19 for attempts to murder; 2,503 arrests for bur- 
glary; 131 for embezzlement; 125 for forgery; 6,957 for 
larceny; 3 for manslaughter; 60 for mayhem; 72 for 
rape; 1,072, for robbery and 23 for murder. No doubt 
a great many of these were ' ' transients " from St. Louis, 
Cincinnati and Denver. 

The report of the Department of Public Safety for the 
city of Pittsburg for the year 1894, shows that there 
were 13,762 arrests made during the year; and out of 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 134 

that number 3,223 were for drunkenness and for violating 
the liquor laws;5,7»^0were unclassified disorderlies, mak- 
ing a total of S,i):)i^ arrests for drunkenness, disorderly 
conduct and violating the liquor laws, or 65 percent for 
these offenses alone. If 50 percent of the remainder can 
be charged up to the traffic, we will have S'J percent of 
all offenses in that city due to liquor. 

The police report of the city of Grand Rapids for the 
year 1894 shows a total number of 1,794 arrests for the 
year. Of this number, 679 were for offenses for drunk- 
enness and violation of the liquor laws, or 38 jDercent. 
There were also made 232 arrests for "disturbing the 
peace," " vagrancy " and "idle and disorderly," making 
of both kinds of offenses a total of 51 percent. 

The annual report of the chief of the police depart- 
ment for the year 1894 shows a total of 9,748 arrests for 
the city of Denver for that year. Of this number 1,181 
were for drunkenness; 971 were for disorderly "con- 
duct;" 2,748 were for "sleepers,*' which we suppose is 
another name for vagrancy or disorderly; 161 for the 
violation of the liquor laws. This makes a total of 5,061 
arrests for drunk and disorderly conduct, or 51 percent 
of the total arrests. Besides these there were 536 arrests 
for vagrancy, 285 for prostitution, 364 for gambling, 135 
for frequenting disorderly houses. In addition to this 
class of offenses, there w^ere 66 arrests for assault to 
murder and 15 arrests for murder; 634 arrests for lar- 
ceny, 70 for robbery, 28 for forgery, 129 for burglary. 
An examination of the report of the city makes one 
instinctively turn to the title page to see if it is not a 
recent translation of some long lost report of the city of 
Sodom by Mr. Lot. The city of Denver has a popela- 
tion of about 150,000. By simple division it will be read- 
ily seen that there was one person arrested for some 



135 TO ANY 

offense for every fifteen of population. We wonder who 
there are to do the arresting. Of course, like St. Louis 
and Chicago, it will probably be claimed that a large 
number of these are "transients" and does not do jus- 
tice to the citizens of that city. To which we will reply 
that it cannot be proven that the police record is not 
a fair index to the character of the people of that city. 
The admission of the chief of police in his letter to the 
board of commissioners shows that no effort was made 
to control the social evil, which is is the greatest evil 
of that city. Men who stand as " respectable men " in 
that city are known to openly encourage gambling and 
prostitution that they may rent their buildings for such 
purposes. But a few yeai:s ago the Rev. Paddock of 
one of the churches of that city procured evidence suffi- 
cient to convict a large number of gamblers, saloon- 
keepers and keepers of houses of ill fame of violating^ 
the law. He took this evidence to the prosecuting 
attorney for the purpose of instituting suits, but that 
officer refused to issue warrants upon the ground that 
public sentiment would not sustain him; and to prove 
it he introduced a petition remonstrating against it and 
signed by a large number of business men among whom 
were some of the most prominent members of various 
churches of the city. Prominent families whose sons 
had been ruined by the gambling craze of the city> 
openly defended gambling upon the ground that it was 
a business necessity, in that it ' ' kept money in circula- 
tion " and " furnished occupants for buildings." The 
imbecility of the whole thing is so apparent that one is 
shocked at the idea that such institutions should obtain 
a hearing at the hands of intelligent people. While 
their newspapers seem to be well edited, their pulpits 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 136 

well supplied with able speakers, and their congres- 
sional districts by men, some of whom have won nat- 
ional reputations for themselves, yet it does not seem 
to have leaked out and become known there, that gam- 
blers and prostitutes produce nothing but crime and 
disease; and that because of it they must fall as a bur- 
den upon those who do produce; that no man can be a 
financial benefit to the world who, in someway, does not 
contribute to the wealth of the world, at least as much 
as he consumes or takes away. According to the estab- 
lished principles of political economy no man is entitled 
to live who does not in some way, if he is able, contrib- 
ute some useful thing to society. What useful thing does 
the business of gambling or prostitution contribute to 
society? The dark ages of eight centuries look down 
upon them both with shame and horror. Denver has 
drank at the gamblers', the prostitutes' and saloon keep- 
ers' fountahi of economic learning since her foundation, 
and the etfect of this teaching is now shown in the fact, 
that with all the advantages of a delightful climate, the 
geographical center of a great fertile agricultural terri- 
tory, as well as the great commercial center of the 
whole Rocky Mountains surrounded by the almost meas- 
ureless wealth of of minerals, with great trunk lines of 
railroads running in every direction, she is yet one of 
the worst wrecked cities of her size in the union, and 
her society on the very verge of ruination. There are 
some good and righteous families still left in that city, 
much to one's surprise. With the foul teachings and 
practices of those high in social position in that city, 
the principles of righteousness must have had a setting 
with God's own hand in the hearts of those families to 
hnvo Dvrv^rr'. f'H tlioir moral charactor to this day. That 



137 TO A^'Y 

you may get further testimony direct from that city I 
hereby append a copy of the letter of the chief of police 
to the police board of that city: 

Metropolitan Police Department, ) 

Office of Chief of Police, y 

Denver, Col., January 2, 1895. ) 

To the HonoraNe Fire and Police Board of the City of 

Denver : 
Gentlemen: 

I submit herewith the regular annual report of the 
Chief of Police, which contains statistical tables, show- 
ing the work of the police department for the year end- 
mg December 31st, 1894. 

Owing to the general panic which prevailed through- 
out the country, during the year 1894, the commission of 
crime was naturally on the increase. The enforced idle- 
ness of a great portion of the working classes, the Coxey 
movement, and various other incidents arising out of the 
industrial famine, laid an extraordinary burden upon this 
department. There were many instances of petty pil- 
fering being done by persons who had hitherto borne a 
good reputation for honesty and industry, and it was 
undoubtedly due to the humane action of the chief exe- 
cutive, and the generous and tolerant spirit of a major- 
ity of our citizens, that this department was not called 
upon to suppress what are called bread riots. An addi- 
tional duty, which may also be classed as extraordinary, 
was placed upon this department, on account of your 
honorable body having decided, on the twenty- third day 
of April, last, to suppress the crime of gambling within 
the city of Denver. This particular offense against the 
laws of the State of Colorado, and the ordinances of the 
city of Denver, had in the past not only been tolerated. 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 138 

but had boon fosterod and protected by the various 
state and municipal ofticers, and aided and abetted by 
' ortain of Denver's citizens, who regarded gambling as 
the hub around which all other interests of the popu- 
lace revolved. The order to suppress gambling included 
11 games of chance and gaming devices, such as policy 
wheels, slot machines, etc., etc., and went into effect at 
12 m., April 23d, 1894. At 1 p. m. of the same day 
gambling was really and effectually stopped. The boss 
gamblers submitted with an easy grace, but not so with 
the tin-horns and the professional poker players, which 
last named coterie numbered some of Denver's best 
known business men. These persons harassed me 
throughout the year and my officers were kept in the 
alert for sneak games and busy arresting persons who 
were persistent in the violation of the law. Although 
arrests for gambling ran up into the hundreds, convic- 
tions were obtained in only a few isolated cases. The 
manifest reluctance of the Police Magistrate to inflict 
penalties, caused me to resort to the justice courts with 
a view of taking advantage of the State law, which was 
supposed to be more far-reaching than the city ordi- 
nances. I was disappointed, for these courts not only 
dismissed the persons charged with gambling, but took 
their implements, which I had confiscated as provided 
by law, away from me with replevin papers and com- 
pelled me to attend court as a witness in civil suits. 
Notwithstanding all these obstacles have been thrown 
in the way of the suppression of gambling, I am able to 
report to you that this vice is fully under control, or as 
much so as buncoing, burglaring, petty thieving, or any 
of the offenses against the laws of the city and State. 

Before I dismiss this subject, I desire to direct atten- 
tion to some of the benefits that have accrued to the 



139 TO ANY 

lovers of peace and good order through the suppression 
of gambling. Formerly a large percentage of the dis- 
turbance cases were due to gambling, and faro fiends 
flooded the city with bogus checks, which was the fav- 
orite scheme for raising a stake. The amount of energy 
expended by this department in suppressing this evil 
has to a considerable extent been offset by the total 
absence of the great multitude of complaints of wives, 
mothers, and other near relatives of workingmen, who 
were continually calling upon the Chief of Police for 
assistance in recovering moneys gambled away by their 
husbands or other persons upon whom they were 
dependent for support. I will leave it to the owners of 
buildings who formerly received an enormous rental 
from the keepers of gambling houses, and the courtezan 
who thrived upon the money extracted from the labor- 
ing classes by her natural consorts, the gamblers, to 
point out the harm that the suppression of gambling 
has done, and the effect it has had in causing the pres- 
ent stringency in the currency; but as hard as the times 
are and have been during the past summer, there are 
several families known to me, and I have learned of 
many others through the statements of acquaintances, 
who have been enjoying three square meals per day, 
while they were seldom able to get one meal per day 
during the flush times and in the palmy days of gam- 
bling. It may be a mistaken idea, but it is my opinion 
that it v/as due to the suppression of gambling that cer- 
tain parasites, who were a continual burden to the tax 
payers and a perpetual menace to the safety of the 
stranger within our gates, have seen fit to leave the 
city, some of v/hom announced that they would not stop 
this side of Japan. 
• I regret to report that the same degree of success 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 140 

which attended the movement for the suppression of 
irambling did not crown the efforts of the police in deal- 
ing with the violaters of the Sunday and midnight clos- 
ing laws. A majority of the saloons were brought 
under control, but I am sorry to say that certain tip- 
pling places have been able to evade the enforcement of 
the law by putting out restaurant signs, and have 
served drinks with fake meals, performing wonderful 
feats in feeding the multitude, compared with which the 
mii-acle of the loaves and fishes faded away into utter 
insignificance. Under this practice one hard boiled egg 
and a piece of stale bread would serve as the instrument 
for the sale of hundreds of glasses of beer. So long as 
the law permits a bar and restaurant to exist in the 
same room, or in rooms connected by inside doors, this 
practice will undoubtedly continue. 

Of all the misdemeanors in the category of offenses 
against the law, prostitution is probably the only one 
that a majority of the people will agree is bound to exist. 
This department has made no effort to suppress the 
social evil. I have tried to feel the public pulse on this 
question, and the traffic has been regulated and con- 
trolled to as great an extent as the manifest wishes of a 
majority of the citizens, w-ho have been heard from on 
the question, would seem to justify. Since the Novem- 
ber election I have received a great many letters from 
women citizens, urging me not to permit gambling to 
resume, but no man or woman has called my attention 
to the scarlet sin for months past. The fact is, the social 
evil, to even a greater extent than gambling, is hedged 
round about with influences, and the lowest denizen of 
the row has her pull, which pull, when well oiled and in 
irood working order, generally dulls the fangs of justice 
to such an extent that the trial magistrate requires 



141 TO ANY 

stronger evidence than the arresting officer can produce. 
Early in my career as chief of police I conceived the idea 
of driving prostitution out of what would otherwise be 
respectable residence districts. I found assignation 
houses running in full blast within the very shadow of 
the church, while many of our principal business blocks 
were infested with as low a class of creation as could be 
found in the slum localities of any city. But persons 
who were, In my unsophisticated mind, above suspicion, 
and really could not have any other than a pecuniary 
motive, undertook to persuade me that my ideas were 
very unbusinesslike. I desired to remove all the demi 
monde to Market street, which for years has been the 
common rendezvoux for this class, but the pastor of an 
influential congregation in that locality informed me 
that he would protest most vigorously against the con- 
tamination which would result to his people from an 
influx of the up-town disreputables, and I found it expe- 
dient to abandon the crusade in that direction. 
* * * * -jp * * 

In the foregoing remarks I have tried to point out 
defects, without suggesting remedies, as I am not- 
inclined to foist my opinions upon your wiser judgments, 
but there is one matter pertaining to this department 
which calls loudly for reform and I feel it my duty to 
direct public attention to it. 

After a little more than nine months' experience in 
the office of Chief of Police, I am clearly of the opinion 
that the police force will never reach a high plane of 
usefulness until politics is eliminated from the list of 
accomplishments that an applicant must possess. The 
sole recommendations for appointment should be for 
those qualities which go to make up a gentlem^an and an 
officer. Appointment to a position on the police force 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. I 42 

should be for lift\ or dni*in^ good behavior, and the line 
of succession should be tixed, and promotions made 
according to civil service rules, and any officer who is 
dismissed from the service, after a thorough investiga- 
tion of the charges against him, should be ineligible for 
reinstatement or reai^pointment for the period of two 
years thereafter. New appointees should be placed on 
probation and required to undergo a test covering a terra 
of three months, and receive permanent appointment at 
the expiration of that time if in the opinion of the Chief 
of Police they could pass inspection. 
Respectfully yours, 

HA]\IILTON ARMSTRONG, 

Chief of Police. 

The police reports of the large cities form a very 
interesting study, for they largely reflect the character 
of their citizens. They do not constitute an edifying 
study, for they deal with the dark side of human life. 
Their interest lies in the fact that they are current 
history. Their pages also disclose the fact that under- 
neath all the iniquity there is a regard for public opin- 
ion and a desire to always appear in the roll of resjjec- 
tability. This is an evidence that down in their hearts 
the great mass of men and women know what is rigTit. 
This is evinced in the published reports of the police 
dei)artments in their efforts to make their respective 
cities appear in decent garments and to take a seat in 
the parquette of respectability. To do this, however, 
requires a police official with remarkable ability to twist 
facts, or wholly inter them, or to give them such a 
peculiar coating that black will appear white and white 
black in one and the same report. We fancy that the 
principal qualification for a police superintendent, in 



143 TO ANY 

the future, will be his ability to write out a certificate 
of good character for his city without any reference to 
the recorded facts concerning that character. 

One of the latest dresses for the parquette was fur- 
nished by Superintendent of Police Seavey, for that 
brilliant sister of metropolitan cities called Omaha. 

Since we have been examining these dresses some- 
what let us turn our attention to this one for a few 
minutes. 

The superintendent's report for 1894 shows that crime 
on the whole is increasing, and that there were 6,249 
arrests made during the year, or one out of about every 
15 or 20 of their number. Of this number 3,412 arrests 
were made for drunk and disorderly conduct, disturbing 
the peace and vagrancy, or 54 per cent. The superin- 
tendent says on page 12 of the report that, "The year 
1894 has been one of the most quiet and orderly of any 
during the last eight years. There has been less crime, 
disorder, and disturbance than any other year during 
my administration, which may be accounted for by the 
vigilance and activity of the police and the peaceful 
inclination of our citizens." How "peaceful" must have 
been the "inclinations" of her "citizens," and how 
' ' active " and how ' ' vigilant " must have been her police 
to keep crime down to one arrest out of every 15 or 20 
of her "peaceful citizens." 

He attempted to show that drunkenness has decreased, 
after which he adds: " This, I believe, is accounted 
for to a great extent by your honorable board in grant- 
ing license to a better class of men than formerly con- 
trolled the saloon business. The saloon keeper who 
values the price of a glass of rum or beer more than he 
does the reputation of his place cannot obtain a license 
so easily as before the licensing power was placed in 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 144 

your hands. At the bottom of page 13 Mr. Seavey says: 
"At the beginning of the year I instructed the police 
to make me a written report every Monday morning 
concerning the condition of the 224 licensed saloons in 
this city, as far as it was possible for them to do, from 
12 o'clock Saturday night until 4 o'clock Monday morn- 
ing of each week. These reports have come in regu- 
larly and show that the saloonkeepers, or their mana- 
gers, have violated the Sunday liquor law 126 times 
during the year. Of this number 121 licensed saloonkeep- 
ers have been arrested for violating the Sunday liquor 
law, nineteen of whom were discharged in the Police 
Court and the two convicted appealed their cases to the 
District Court." 

On page 29 of his report Mr. Seavey shows that 
besides the 126 violations of Sunday closing reported by 
the police, thci-e vrere 87 saloonkeepers arrested for 
crimes and misdemeanors out of the 224, or one out of 
every 2 3-5 of their number. 

The whole thing is summed up in about this way: 
224 men engage in the saloon business for a year. They 
are actually detected in the violation of one branch of 
the law 126 times, and besides that 87 of their number 
were arrested for crimes and misdemeanors. The police 
superintendent takes off his hat, appears before the 
grand stand and says: " This, I believe, is accounted 
for to a great extent by your honorable board in grant- 
ing license to a better class of men than formerly con- 
trolled the saloon business. The saloonkeeper who 
values the x">rice of a glass of rum or beer more than he 
does the reputation of his place cannot obtain a license 
so easily as before the licensing power was placed in 
your hands." 

On page 13 he submits this table: 



145 






TO ANY 




Arrests for gambling, 1887, 


(seven months) 


169 








1888, 


- 


43 








1889 


. 


57 








1890 


. 


77 








1891 


. 


341 








1892 


. 


168 








1893 


. 


33 








1894 


. 


25 



Total 



913 



* ' Of this number two gamblers were convicted and 
paid a fine of $1 each." 

Taken together out of the 126 saloonkeepers detected 
in committing offenses and the 913 gamblers arrested, 
but two saloonkeepers and two gamblers were convicted 
by the police department. Because of all this, says Mr. 
Seavey: "There has been less crime, disorder and dis- 
turbance than any year during my administration, 
which may be accounted for by the vigilance and activ- 
ity of the police and the peaceful inclinations of our 
citizens." Evidently such "eternal vigilance "on the 
part of his police as that is the "price of liberty " — for. 
rogues and criminals. 

In the address of Dr. Charles S. Hoyt, of New York, 
president of the Conference of Charities and Correc- 
tions, which met at Buffalo, N. Y. , in 1888, he said: 
While ifc is true that all drunkards do not become pau- 
pers or insane, or fall into crime, it is well established 
by statistics that a very large proportion of the inmates 
of our institutions of charity and corrections are vic- 
tims, direct or indirect, of intemperate habits, and their 
accompanying vicious and debasing practices. Under 
a resolution of the legislature the New York State 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 146 

Board of Charities instituted and conducted an inquiry 
into the causes of pauperism, by which a systematic and 
careful jiorsonal examination was made of all the 
inmates of the poor houses of the state, these number- 
ins^ nearly 13,000, including the pauper insane in New 
York and Kings counties, and in the asylums of the 
other counties. In the prosecution of their work the 
board was aided by the records of these institutions, by 
the volunteer service of numerous citizens in the various 
cities and counties of the state and by the superintendent, 
physicians, keepers and other officials in charge. Of the 
inmates over 16 years of age, then numbering nearly 
ten thousand, exclusive of idiots, including sane, insane, 
epileptic and otherwise infirm and vagrant, it was found 
that over 84 per cent, of the males and nearly 42 per 
cent, of the females were known to be intemperate, the 
ratio of intemperate embracing both sexes being fully 
62 per cent. A similar inquiry into the habits of the 
inmates of the corrections and penal institutions of the 
State would doubtless have shown that the proportion 
of the intemperate then in these institutions was equal, 
if not even greater than in its poor houses and alms 
houses, and this proportion, in both paupers and crim- 
inals, is found by even more recent statistics still to 
exist, and in some localities actually to have been 
increased. 

"The subject of intemperance requires no extended 
mention from me at this time, its evils are so obvious 
and so generally acknowledged. In brief, it robs the 
poor of their hard earnings and time, and brings pinch- 
ing want and distress upon their families; it deranges 
and impairs the delicate organism of the brain and ner- 
vous system, and thus induces insanity, ])aralysis and 
Other kindred diseases; and it unduly excites the vie- 



147 TO ANY 

^ous, turbulent, and debase, and stimulates them to acta 
of disorder, violence and crime. It would seem clearly 
the duty of the state and society, therefore, to take such 
measures as may be practicable to lessen these crying 
evils arising from intemperance, as its votaries so 
largely come upon the public foi' care and support, or 
by their acts of violence and lawlessness annoy and dis 
turb the good order, well being, and safety of the 
community." 

(See proceedings of Conference of Charities and 
Corrections of 1888, page 22.) 

Nathan Allen, M. D., in his address before the 
same conference, on another occasion, said : ' ' More 
prolific than any other in the production of crimes is 
the vice of intemperance. This operates in so many 
ways that it is impossible to trace out all its pernicious 
effects. It impoverishes people, and brings them into 
circumstances of temptation; it corrupts the morals and 
poisons the blood; it excites the evil propensities, and 
develops the animal nature; it stupefies conscience and 
destroys the moral sentiments; it impairs in man the 
powers of free agency and converts him into a brute. 
Whatever produces such results upon the human sys- 
tem must have a powerful influence in the production 
oi crime. The evidences come from all quarters (and 
without contradiction from any) that intemperance is 
the cause or occasion of three-fourths of all the crime 
committed — some estimate it even higher. The habit 
commences esbvlj and more readily with individuals and 
families who are pre-disposed to idleness and to a low 
animal life. The natural instincts of such persons flow 
in one direction, and drinking becomes a master passion. 
If mtoxicating drinks could be withhv-^ld from this class 
■of persons th.eir habits and character would .<^^3itly 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. ' 148 

improve. By ihis lucaii-^ muiv than half of the crime 
committed would be prevented."' 

Before leaving this subject let me again call your 
attention to the words of the United States Supreme 
Court: "The statistics of every state show a greater 
amount of crime and misery attributable to the use of 
ardent spirits obtainable at these retail liquor saloons 
than to any other source.'"' (Calif ornia vs. Christensen.) 

It is true that there are some persons entitled to 
respect, and whose opinions are of value who do not 
attribute a large percentage of the higher crimes to the 
use of strong drink, and they often are quoted by 
adherents of the liquor trafiic. 

Among this class there are none more entitled to 
consideration than Mr. F. H. Wines. In an impromptu 
address delivered before the Conference of Charities 
and Corrections, in 1886, he admitted that much pov- 
erty and distress could be traced to the liquor traffic, and 
he deplored its existence, but he stated that he did not be- 
lieve any considerable amount of the higher crimes could 
be traced to it. While his opinion is entitled to respect 
and consideration, yet he, like all others who have 
spoken in this manner, furnished no proof beyond his 
own opinion. It is true that there have been discovered a 
few criminals w^ho were total abstainers at the time 
their crimes were committed, but no proof has yet been 
adduced to show that there has ever been any number 
of criminals worth mentioning, who have not at some 
time in their lives been drinkers or habitues of saloons, 
or dives; and we challenge any one to furnish such 
proof. On the contrary, we think it has been fairly 
shown that the great mass of criminals are habitues 
of saloons and dives and hard drinkers. One set of 
apolr>frists foi- liquor claim that liquor is abused by 



149 TO ANY 

men who drink it to enable them to commit crime, while 
Mr. Wines says they must have clear heads in order to 
successfully commit crime, and hence from the very 
nature of the case must be temperate. There seems to 
be something quite incompatible with these very plaus- 
ible theories. We will not stop to examine these the- 
ories here, but will take them up later on. 

When we come to understand the nature of the effect 
which alcoholic drinks have upon the human system we 
are astonished that there should be any doubt about its 
being the chief factor in the production of crime. In 
every well balanced person may be found the propen- 
sities of " amativenes, " "combativeness," "secretive • 
ness," and "acquisitiveness."' These propensities, when 
properly balanced with a man's nobler sentiments and 
faculties make him a well rounded and useful being, but 
throw them out of balance in any way, and the result 
will be an imperfect creature whose good conduct can- 
not be depended upon. It does not require so very great 
an amount of influence exerted upon the delicate parts 
of man's organism to derange it, even in the strongest 
and best of men. This has been demonstrated almost 
an infinite number of times in men who for half a cen- 
tury had lived lives of moral rectitude, but in a moment 
of temptation when the propensity of amativeness, com- 
bativeness, or acquisitiveness was too strongly appealed 
to they became temporarily unbalanced and committed 
acts which an hour before seemed impossible for them 
to commit. The best of men find it necessary to 
"watch " their thoughts, and guard themselves in their 
conduct lest they encourage to too great an extent the 
•development of these propensities. What must be the 
effect upon those people who gratify base desires with- 
out restraint? 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 1 'lO 

It was long ago found by Gall, the noted phnmolo- 
irist, that alcohol, administered to his low companions, 
brought out the propensity of combativeness and made 
them quarrelsome. It does not take much of this stimu. 
lant to make a midnight brawler out of a once respecta- 
ble citizen. You have only to stimulate the propensity 
(using the language and classification of Spurzheim) of 
combativeness in the man of large destructive propensi. 
ties, while smarting under some real or fancied wrong 
inflicted upon him by another, to make a murderer out 
of hun. The great majority of murders committed in 
saloon brawls can hardly be accounted for in any other 
way. For it is a notorious fact that in these cases there 
is not enough of material value contended for or of 
merit in the claims of either party to command the 
respectful attention of any intelligent, sober citizen for 
an instant. 

Allow me to again quote from the address of Dr. 
Hoyt before spoken of in connection with this matter. 
He says: "It deranges and impairs the delicate organ- 
ism of the brain and nervous system, and thus induces 
insanity, paralysis, and other kindred diseases; and it 
unduly excites the vicious, turbulent, and debased, and 
stimulates them to acts of disorder, violence and crime." 
This statement is corroborated by such specialists as 
Dr. B. W. Richardson, Dr. Norman Kerr, Dr. Wallace 
Parker, Dr. N. S. Davis, Sir Henry Thompson, M. D. , 
F. R. S., W. F. Chambers, M. D., F. R. S., and many 
others. It is the conclusion reached by Dr. B. W. 
Richardson, after years of experimental work in the 
hospital which he superintends, and which no alcoholic 
stimulants, except for experimental purposes, are used. 

If these things be true then what must be the effect 
of the use of liquor upon a man of large endowment of 



151 



TO ANY 




PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 152 

amativeness and a small endowment of self restraint? 
These are the assaulters, the adulterers, rape fiends. 
What etfect would it be likely to have upon the cashier 
of a bank who had a large endowment of acquisitiveness 
and secretiveness and a small endowment of firmness? 
By such a combination forgers and defaulters are made. 
With them fear is the only restraining influence. 
Remove that and crime is committed. Fear is removed 
by developing the propensities of combativeness. 

Now, construct 65,000,000 human beings with propen- 
sities and faculties of every conceivable mixture and 
put them into a society operated on the competitive 
plan of the latest pattern. Send them out to fight for 
and agamst combinations, trusts, pools, corporations, 
syndicates and political bosses, to maintain an exist- 
ence. When they get nicely interested in the fight turn 
into their stomachs 18 gallons of alcoholic liquors per 
each man, woman and baby fer each year thereafter 
through succeeding generations. He would be stupid 
who would look for any different results than those w^e 
have attained. Take away from a man his ability to 
appreciate "nice shades of right and wrong," and you 
make a moral imbecile of him (Bouvier's Law Dictionary) ; 
and you have left little else than a dangerous beast. To 
protect women and children in the south these are 
lynched, and they are often lynched in the north also 
and many are imprisoned and executed in accordance 
with the laws of the states. 

One cannot contemplate all this without a feeling of 
horror, for the price of it all is the superficial though 
deadly pleasure of drinking grog. 

Under the hypnotizing influences of this awful traffic 
men forget their own danger and the danger of their 

lovod OIK'S. 



153 TO ANY 

According to what we liave shown, as well as the 
opinion of those competent to speak, of the 9,800 mur- 
ders committed last year it is safe to say that 66 per 
cent, of them are due either directly or indirectly to 
liquor, or 6,532. At this rate there would be in ten 
years an army of 65,320 murdered, or an army about 
equal in size to the army of McClellan at the battle of 
Antietam. Had his army been slaughtered by the con- 
federates or vice versa the whole world would have 
been shocked by the awful carnage. But the arch 
enemy, rum, can murder an equal number of innocent 
men, women and children, and the people will revel in 
the process and lick the instruments of death. 

According to this calculation there would be one per- 
son in every 10,000 of population murdered outright by 
the liquor traffic annually. That means murder in the 
first degree. Should you live to be thirty years older 
there will be one chance in ever 333 that rum will cause 
your murder whether you drink or not. If you have a 
wife and two children and you and your wife live thirty 
years longer and your children seventy years each there 
will be one chance in fifty that one of you will be 
murdered by the rum traffic during that time, to say 
nothing of the chances of insanity, pauperism, and death 
by the carelessness of drunken men. 

For the sake of an occasional drink of beer or 
whisky are you willing to subject yourself and family 
to such desperate chances? No one can tell where a 
drunken murderer will strike. It may be from a con- 
ceived wrong which you never committed, or it may be 
a murder for your money by some wretch who has 
spent an inherited fortune for grog, and who in his low 
and besotted condition desires your hard earned money 
to continue in his course of ease and dissipation. It 



PROFESSED CHRISTIAN. 



154 



matters not for what you may conceive it to be done, 
the truth is inexorable and your chances are sure. Who 
for the world will subject his family to such awful dan- 
ger? None but the reckless and criminal. It cannot be 
that rational human beings will continue such a course 
of cruel policy. 
In the language of the imortal Cowper : 

"Cruel is all he does. 

'Tis quenchless thirst 
Of ruinous ebrity that prompts 
His every action, and imbrutes the man. 
Oh for a law to loose the villain's neck 
Who starves his own: Who persecutes the blood 
He gave them in his children's veins, and hates 
And wrongs the woman he has sworn to love." 

Yours most respectfully, 




155 TO EVER\ 



Grand Rapids, Mich., September 2, 1895. 
To Every American Citizen, ) 
Uniontown, U. S. a. f 

Bear Sir — 

I hope you will pardon me for addressing this second 
letter to you. Fearing that we had not made all points 
clear to you in our first letter we have thought best to 
address the second one to you. 

The best and most intelligent people of the country, 
in sentiment, are opposed to the liquor traffic, and the 
hope for the future is that in some way this sentiment 
may be crystalized into an active and practical move- 
ment to abolish this destructive business and substitute 
something less harmful and more useful in its place for 
the pleasure of the people. The various christian 
societies are now in sentiment, at least, opposed to the 
continuation of the traffic, as is seen by their official 
utterances. At the various conferences of the soverign 
or representatives bodies of protestant churches in the 
country strong resolutions condeming the liquor traffic 
have been passed. Among these denominations are the 
Wesleyan Methodists, the Universalists, United Breth- 
ren, United Presbyterian, Seventh Day Adventists, the 
Reformed Episcopal, the Protestant Episcopal, the 
Presbyterian, the Northern and Southern Branches of 
the Methodist Episcopal, the English Branch of the 
Lutheran, the Free Will Baptist, the Free Methodist, 
the Evangelical, the Dutch Reformed, the Disciples, 
the Cumberland Presbyterian, the National Council of 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 156 

Congregational Chui'ches, the American Baptist Home 
Mission Society, the African M. E. 

To give an idea of the general character of these 
resolutions we quote the following from the utterances 
of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church in 
1889: "We earnestly recommend to ministers and con- 
gregations in our connection and to all others to perse- 
vere in vigorous efforts until laws shall be enacted in 
every state and territory of our beloved country prohib- 
iting entirely a traffic which is the principal cause of 
the drunkenness and its consequent pauperism, crime, 
taxation, lamentations, war and ruin to bodies and souls 
of men with which the country has so long been 
afflicted." 

Also the following from the Northern Branch of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, in its conference in 1888, 
"The liquor habit is so pernicious in all its bearings, so 
inimical to the interest of trade, so repugnant to the 
moral sense, so injurious to the peace and order of 
society, so hurtful to the homes, to the church and body 
politic, and so utterly antagonistic to all that is precious 
in life, that the only proper attitude toward it for chris- 
tians is that of relentless hostility. It can never be 
legalized without sin. No temporary device for regu- 
lating it can become a substitute for prohibition. 
License, high or low, is vicious as a principle and pow- 
erless as a remedy." 

The national Counsel of the Congregational Churches, 
in 18^9, resolved: "That the saloon is so great a men- 
ace to the peace of society, to the good order and wel- 
fare of the community in which it exists, and so great a 
hindrance to the advance of the cause of our Divine 
Master as to demand the employment of the wisest and 
most efficient means for its removal." 



157 TO EVERY 

The American Baptist Home Mission Society, in 
1890, declared as follows: "Resolved that we stand 
pledged by every legitimate means to work and pray 
and (as God shall give us w^isdom and light) to vote for 
the absolute abolition and overthrow of the iniquitous 
traffic in State and Nation." 

And lastly, the great Roman Catholic clTurch has 
spoken against it in a way that shows that the highest 
authority of that church looks upon the saloon with dis- 
favor. Archbishop Satolli, the apostolic delegate from 
Rome, when appealed to from Bishop Watterson's rul- 
ing against saloon keepers, in July, 1894, in answer to 
the appeal said: "The liquor traffic, and especially as 
it is conducted in the United States, is the source of 
much evil; hence the Bishop was acting w^ithin his 
rights in seeking to restrict it." (For declaration of 
church utterances see "Cyclopedia of Temperance.") 

In line with the actions of the religious societies con- 
cerning this traffic are the actions of the great fraternal 
societies. Beginning a few years since, we believe, 
with the great Masonic order, one after another of the 
various fraternal societies have put up the bars against 
liquor makers and venders until today there is hardly 
one of which a saloonkeeper can become a member. 

By a rule passed by the Grand Lodge of Masons for 
the jurisdiction of Michigan, all persons pecuniarly 
interested in the sale of liquor for beverages are barred 
from becoming members of the order. (See Blue Book. ) 
We are informed by one high in Masonic authority that a 
large number of other jurisdictions maintain the same 
rule. The Odd Fellows adopted this rule at the last 
meeting of their Sovereign Grand Lodge. The Knights 
of Pythias, at the meeting of the Supreme body of that 
order in Washington, in 1894^ declared that prof ession. j1 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 158 

gamblers, saloon keepers, bar tenders and the like were 
no longer eligible to become members of that order. 
(See constitution K. P.) 

The Ancient Order of United Workmen, the Indepen- 
dent Order of F'oresters, the Knights of the Maccabees, 
The Loyal Guard, The Royal Templars of Temperance, 
Sons of Temperance, The Independent Order of Good 
Templars, Royal Arcanum, and many others have dis- 
barred all liquor men from membership by constitutional 
regulation similar to the following taken from the con- 
stitution of the Modern Woodmen, page 21: " Persons 
engaged in the following kinds of business or employ- 
ment shall not be admitted as members of this frater- 
nity: railway brakemen, railway engineers, fireman or 
switchmen, miner, employe in gun powder factory, 

WHOLESALER OR MANUFACTURER OF LIQUORS, SALOON 

KEEPERS, SALOON BAR TENDERS, balloonists, sailors on 
the lakes or seas, plow grinder or brass worker, profes- 
sional base ball player, and professional fireman or sol- 
dier in the regular army." 

In a majority of the cases named the ineligibility is 
due to the dangerous character of the risk, but with the 
saloonist it is due both to the dangerous character of 
the risks and disreputableness of the business engaged 
in. The Knights of Pythias, a most exemplary order 
of excellent men, without having regard for "risk"^ — 
they not being an insurance society — placed the saloon 
"keeper on a level with professional gamblers in discrim- 
inating against them. 

When we come to look up the records of the saloon 
keepers we do not wonder at all at this discrimination. 
Taking the police records of several representative 
cities, such as Giand Rapids, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, 
Pittsburg, St. Louis, Denver, Chicago and Detroit, ive 



159 TO EVERY 

find that the percentage of arrests for this class of per- 
sons far exceeds that of any respectable lines of 
business. 

In Grand Rapids, with a total of 196 saloons for the 
year ending April 30, 1894, there were th.rty saloon 
keepers arrested for crimes and misdemeanors, or one 
out of every seven of their number, as compared with 
one out of fifty -two for the whole population. Besides 
that there are few in the city who do not believe that 
every salooon keeper in the city violated the law a hun- 
dred different times and in every form during the year. 

According to the report of the Board of Police for the 
city of Cincinnati, 1894, there were 620 saloon keepers 
arrested for crnne and misdemeanors, or one out of 
every three or four of their number, besides the arrest 
of 341 bar keepers and 79 brewers. 

For the year ending July 1, 1895, there were 741 
saloon keepers arrested in the city of Detroit for crimes 
and misdemeanors, or one out of every two of their 
number, besides the arrest of 113 bar tenders and 9 
brewers. Fully one out of every two saloonkeepers in 
Detroit were arrested for the commission of crimes and 
misdemeanors. Yet Mayor Pingree of that city wel- 
comed the Liquor Dealers' State Protective association 
to that city, in behalf of the people. Think of the low 
condition of social life, which will tolerate a mayor in 
welcoming on behalf of the people a set of law violators, 
meeting under the auspices of their local confederates 
of which one out of every two of their number had been 
arrested during the year for some crime or mis- 
demeanor! 

In New York City there were 9,028 saloons and 8,464 
arrests for violation of the excist laws in 1894, or nearly 
every saloon keeper in the city. 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 



IBO 




161 TO EVERY 

In Denver there were 162 saloon keepers arrested, in 
1894, or one out of every three or four of their number, 
besides the arrest of 47 bar tenders, according to the 
police reports of that city. 

In St. Louis there were 238 saloon keepers arrested, 
or one out of every seven or eight of their number, 
besides the arrest of 265 bar tenders, 50 brewers, and 
three distillers. 

In Chicago, in 1894, there were 1,755 saloon keepers 
arrested for crimes and misdemeanors, or one out of 
every three or four of their number, besides the arrest 
of 915 bar tenders, 38 brewers, and one distiller. (See 
police reports of these cities. ) 

Do you wonder that decent, self-respecting gentlemen 
should close the doors of their fraternal homes — homes 
of brotherhood — against such a disreputable class of 
anarchists, lawbreakers and criminals? 

It is quite difficult to see how a thing, too disreputa- 
ble to be represented in a gentleman's fraternity, is yet 
reputable enough to be represented in his home com- 
munity, and to receive his patronage v/hen outside of 
his lodge room. Do you think that it is honorable to 
exclude a class of men from your fraternity because of 
their disreputable and criminal character, and yet pri- 
vately hobnob with that same class in their places of 
vice? Is that square living? We have seen time and 
again, gentlemen wearing the ensignia of these frater- 
nities, in saloons in a hilarious condition, hobnobbing 
with that class disbarred from membership on general 
principles, and whom they themselves would black-ball 
should their names be proposed for membership in their 
fraternities. Do you say that this is square living? Do 
you think that the business of liquor buying and liquor 



AMEUICAN CITIZEN. 



162 




163 TO EVERY 

drinking can be any higher than liquor selling? If so 
please explain how. The mere incorporation of a clause 
into a constitution or the use of a black ball cannot, in 
fact, make one man better than another. The only way 
you or I can become better than a saloon keeper is to 
incorporate into our lives, better resolutions, 
better deeds, nobler impulses, and more honor- 
able aspirations. To drink liquor in a saloon under 
the ensignia of these fraternities is an act of inconsis- 
tency. To vote the business out of a fraternity so that 
its loathesomeness shall not destroy the pleasures of 
brotherly association, or its criminal character contam- 
inate the morals of the brethren, and yet with the same 
hand vote that same business into a home community, 
where it can contaminate the morals of our own child- 
ren, and still attempt to justify our conduct in such a 
course is a juggling of principles equaled only in mys- 
tery by those skilled in necromancy. 

Since the time of the "Whisky Kebellion," during 
Washington's administration, down to the present time, 
the liquor traffic has been continually at war with society 
and the state. It has o^Denly resisted every form of 
law enacted to restrain its corrupting influence. Its 
rebellion during Washington's administration, against 
the revenue tax levied at the close of the great revolu- 
tion, in a wise and honest effort, under the dkection of 
Washington and Hamilton, to relieve the country of the 
great burden of the war, stamped it, in its inception, as 
a dangerous institution. Its rebellion in South Carolina 
against the dispensary system after a great majority of 
the intelligent citizens had voted to favor absolute pro- 
hibition shows that it has not changed in evil character. 

The patriotic motive of ' ' seeking the greatest good 
for the greatest number" is hardly known to them. The 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 104 

^ill of the majority is not respected and their whole 
influence is revolutionary. 

State after state have adopted prohibitory amend- 
ments only to be resisted and openly violated by the 
organized liquor traffic until the people have been 
frightened into their repeal. The following dispatch to 
the Detroit Journal shows the treasonable character of 
these men as well as the bush-whacking methods 
employed in their war against society and the state: 

Dubuque, la., May 21. — In an interview yesterday 
Internal Revenue Collector Webster, of this district, 
stated that the prohibitory law increased the sale of 
liquor in Iowa. This year he has issued 232 more liquor 
licenses than last year.- The number of wholesale 
dealers is slightly less than before the prohibitory law, 
but the sales are larger and the quality of liquoi' sold is 
poorer. Not only have the sales increased, but since 
the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the 
case of Bowman Bros. , the Marshalltown brewers, the 
importation by express of original packages of liquor 
has been enormous. Wholesale liquor houses have 
sprung up all along the borders of the state and are 
supported mainly by Iowa trade. 

Local option and high license have been substituted 
generally for prohibition wherever prohibition has been 
repealed only to be violated in the same manner. The 
liquor men have organized state and national leagues 
a.nd associations known by different names for the 
express^ though of course not the avowed, purpose of 
resisting the enforcement of these laws. In Michigan 
high license and local option have been substituted for 
prohibition at their behest, and yet every feature of 
both laws is violated openly and without limit. In such 
counties as Hillsdale, Eaton and Vanburen, where local 



165 TO EVERY 

option was adopted by nearly two-thirds majorities, 
" blind tigers " and ''joints" were immediately opened 
by the liquor men, and when arrested their costs and 
attorney fees were paid by the State Liquor Dealers' 
Protective Association. This is now their favorite 
method of work in all prohibitory territory to accomplish 
the defeat and repeal of all objectionable laws. The 
leaders of thesie organizations are as a rule men of well 
known disreputable character. We know of some of 
these organizations, viz: The State Liquor Dealers' 
Protective Association of Michigan, w^here the origina- 
tors and some of the leaders were men who had served 
sentences in states prison and jail for such high crimes 
as forgery, embezzlement, etc- 

Their favorite methods are to boycott, intimidate and 
bribe their w^ay to success. At the seventh session of 
the Beer Brev/er's Congress they passed the following 
resolution. "Resolved, That we find it necessary in a 
business point of view, to patronize only such business 
men as will work hand in hand wdth us." 

Take the following from the New York Wine and 
Spirit Gazette, one of the leading liquor papers in the 
country, as a sample of the utter lack of sense and utter 
disregard of the rights of others w^hich govern this 
business: 

' ' The Chicago & Alton Railwaj^ Company is rigidly 
enforcing the rules, w^hich appeared on the company's 
last time card, prohibiting the use of intoxicating liquor 
by employes on duty, ond also having liquor on or about 
the company's premises. The rules further state that 
any man known to use liquor or gamble on or off duty, 
will be promptly and permanently dismissed. Surely, 
this rule of the Chicago & Alton railroad is a most arbi- 
trary and unjust interference with the personal liberty 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 166 

of the employes of the road and may prove very injur- 
ious to the business of the corporation. We hear that 
the brewers and liquer dealers are withdrawing their 
patronage from the road, and it is not unlikely that the 
material decrease in the earnings of the road from its 
freight business will bring the directors to their senses, 
and lead to a modification of this unjust and tyrannical 
rule." 

"It is known that in the amendment campaign in 
Pennsylvania, in L^89, 5^:200,000 were contributed in the 
city of Philadelphia alone by the liquor dealers, while 
the brewers of New York added ^100,000 more." (See 
*'Our Country/' by Josiah Strong, D. D., p. 131.) 

In Michigan while the grand jury was investigating 
the frauds relative to the state officers' salaries, a Detroit 
Evening News reporter visited different cities where the 
constitutional amendment for the prohibition of the 
liquor traffic had been reported as being defeated by 
overwhelming majorities, for the purpose of examining 
the records, and found to his surprise that the records 
had been taken bodily out of their files and destroyed so 
as to cover ujd the tracks of the culprits. He also found 
in Gogebic county, in certain precincts where the Ital- 
ians and Polocks had been marched in squads from pre- 
cinct to precinct and voted in flocks two and three each. 

In the city of Detroit voting was done contrary to 
law, and the ballot boxes and polls were in the hands 
of the saloonkeepers in different i)laces Ministers of 
the gospel and christian men were forcibly driven away 
from the polls. After the election these frauds and out- 
rages were complained of, and according to the Free 
Press "Shoals of petitions'' were sent in to the legisla- 
ture asking for an investigation. No case was more 
fully made out, and yet the legislature refused to order 



167 



TO EVERY 



an investigation. For what reason was best known to 
itself. 

The desperate character of these men is shown in the 
brutal murder of such christian patriots as the Rev. 
Geo. C. Haddock,. whose only offense to them was his. 
decency and his endeavor to compel them to live up ta 




SALOON METHODS AND ARGUMENTS — HOW DO YOU 
LIKE THEM? 



the laws of the state. At a meeting of the Saloonkeep- 
ers' Association of Sioux City, on August 2nd, 1886, they 
planned the murder of Rev. George C. Haddock, and 
which plans were carried out on the night of Aug. 3d, 
1886. (See Hero and Martyr, by F. C. Haddock.) The 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 168 

murder of Editors Gambrell and Moffit are other 
instances of their brutality. The outrage upon Editor 
John Mahin, of Muscatine, la. , and the District Judge, 
in putting d^^namite under their residences and blowing 
them to pieces, is another sample of their methods of 
warfare. No judge or prosecuting officer can vigor- 
ously enforce the law as they find it without incurring 
the greatest risks to life and i)roperty. But a short 
time since the life of Judge R. H. Person of the 30th 
Judicial Circuit of Michigan, a most faithful and con- 
scientious officer, w^as threatened because he enforced the 
license law^s of his jurisdiction with the same degree of 
vigor and impartiality that he enforced other laws. The 
plot was discovered in time to defeat the conspirators. 
Not like honest men do they go about their work. The 
constitutional methods pursued by honest citizens do 
not answer their purpose. They are not walling to 
trust their case with the people at the ballot box, and 
submit to the will of a constitutional majority, obtained 
by a fair showing of facts and principles. No, not at 
all, but by bribery, fraud, intimidation and murder do 
they accomplish their w^ork. Brute force is often a 
favorite method of accomplishing their purposes, and 
that too, not by a fair fight in an open field, but in the 
secret hours cf the night when their victims are asleep, 
with revolver, stiletto, dynamite, bludgeon, or fire- 
brand do they accomplish their work. No wonder they 
have succeeded. No respectable man would stoop to 
such methods as they have employed. The temperance 
forces have treated them like worthy opponents. They 
have laid their claims honestly before the people. Their 
methods have been open. They have taken the census 
reports and various statistics of the revenue depart- 
ment, and from the pulpit, rostrum, desk and press 



169 TO EVERY 

have they proclaimed the truth to the people as they 
have believed it. They have been met by an enemy 
skulking behind hedges, in dark alleys, with their argu- 
ments wrapped up in dynamite packages, or thrust in a. 
leather sheath, or put in the chambers of a revolver and 
presented behind a bulls-eye lantern. In this way they 
have won, and their highest and most refined and aris- 
tocratic body in the land, the United States Brewers' 
Congress, meets annually and boasts of their successes 
and victories. 

The substance of the whole thing is this: These men 
force upon you great chances of being brutally mur- 
dered, and because j^ou resist the oppression in a prac- 
tical way, you are shadowed and run to the earth by 
their sympathizers and paid assassins, after which their 
congresses meet and boast of their successes. 

In whatever manner or way has this traffic ever 
shown any concern over the alarming increase of crime 
in this country with its threatening danger to our 
republican institutions? We challenge any man to 
show that they have ever shown any concern. Take to 
them your statistical abstracts and census reports and 
show them that crime has increased 35 per cent, in 
twenty years over the increase in population; that mur- 
der has increased 600 jDer cent, in the last thirty years; 
that the safety of our public institutions are threatened 
and that unless the order is changed insurrection and 
anarchy will reign. You will receive from them the 
patriotic (?)reply, "I can take care of myself if the rest 
can." No other answer can be or should be expected 
from them for they are the criminal element of society, 
and criminals are not very apt to cai*e much for the wel- 
fare of society. A man who does so care for society is 
not a criminal. Criminals care little for order and its 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 170 

perpetuity, for in times of disorder and insurrection 
they prosper most. This is absolutely true of saloons. 
It is during times of strikes, riots, and great public 
excitement that saloons have done the most business, 
unless closed by police power. (See recent trouble in 
the Upper Peninsula as described by the Detroit Even- 
ing News.) The facts are so well known as to need no 
citation of special cases to prove that among the first 
things to be done in cases of great public excitement is 
to put the saloons under the closest surveillance of the 
police power of the city. If the men engaged in this 
business cannot be trusted in hours of great trial and 
peril to themselves as well as to all others, to stand by 
the flag and by the state, then tell me, please, how they 
are to be trusted in times of order and safety. Take to 
them the newspaper accounts of the murders committed 
by rum fiends and you will be met by scoffs. They have 
the money and their interest ends with that. They 
know that not one of their number can tell how a quan- 
tity of liquor is going to affect a customer. The same 
man can stand more liquor one day than he can on 
another. Under certain conditions liquor will cause a 
man to be jolly on one occasion while it will make of 
him a raging beast on another. We, ourselves, have 
seen this demonstrated many times. A liquor dealer 
takes the chances, for money, of furnishing liquor to 
drinkers and sending them home to assault and murder 
their innocent children and friends. No liquor seller 
can tell when he is going to send out of his door some 
misguided creature, incapable of reading himself, to 
commit the worst of crimes. This condition grows out 
of the peculiar nature of alcohol and its effects upon the 
human system, and can never be avoided. It is because 
of the inabilitity of saloon keepers to understand the 



171 TO EVERY 

physical and mental conditions and temperament of their 
customers, at the time they sell them drink as well as 
the inability of the drinkers to read themselves, that the 
sale of liquor becomes a menace to society. Besides 
that scruples along those lines have long since been 
laid aside, and the sale of liquor to minors, inebriates 
and persons of high temper is a common, every day 
occurrence. If there ever was a plain duty of govern- 
ment it is the duty of protectmg the weak against the 
strong, even to going to the uttermost extent. Not only 
is it a plain duty to punish an offender, who perpetrates 
a wrong upon society, but it is just as plain a duty to 
keep the weaker members from being harmed in the 
first instance. It is of little satisfaction to a child who 
has been maimed for life to have its drunken father sent 
to states prison for a term of years. There would be 
little satisfaction to a wife whose child had been mur- 
dered by a drunken husband to see him electrocuted. I 
am not so much interested in having my murderer sent 
to the gallows as I am in the right to live and enjoy the 
blessings of God. That is the right which the consti- 
tution has granted to me, namely, the right of life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to live 
comes first of all in the natural rights of men, and it is 
my right and duty to complain of all encroachments 
upon that sacred right. The operation of the liquor 
traffic reduces that chance to one in one-hundred forty in 
seventy years. Prizing life as I do I am not willing to 
take these chances myself to furnish dissipation to 
reckless drinkers, and to criminal persons a living 
without honest labor. Regarding highly the welfare of 
others I do not set an example of drinking before them, 
although I am willing to admit that I like the taste of 
some liquors. Standing as I do for the welfare of my 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 



172 



country and seeking to reduce to a minimum the danger 
to my own life and the lives of my family, I remonstrate 
with my whole soul and power against my country 
which I have tried to serve as a patriotic and honorable 
citizen, forcing upon me the dangers threatened by the 
liquor traffic. To me it is little less than despotism. 
I am willing to enlist in my country's cause, and stand 
as the target for the rifle of an enemy and take my 
chances of one in one-hundred forty of being sacrificed, 




IS THIS YOUR CHANGE IN ONE-HUNDRED FORTY? 



but I am not willing to form the skirmish line and take 
those chances upon myself and family to protect saloon 
keei^ers, criminals, and the campfollowers of creation 
in drinking grog behind the stumps and stone fences of 
this civilization. Are you? 



173 TO EVERY 

One cannot read the metropolitan papers without 
feeling the greatest indignation at the atrocities com- 
mitted upon the weakest and most helpless members of 
society, recorded therein. Here are a few samples of 
them: 

Kansas City, Mo., July 17. — In a fit of drunken rage 
last night George McNamara fatally stabbed his wife and 
seriously wounded his mother-in-law, Mrs. S. E. May- 
field. The difiiculty originated with a family quarrel. 

Chicago, Sept. 5. — John H. O'Connor to-day shot his 
partner in business, P. Ford, inflicting wounds probably 
fatal. O'Connor also shot and killed a little girl, name 
unknown. The tragedy occurred at Green and Madison 
Sts. The men were proprietors of a tin and sheet iron 
business. 

O'Connor, who had been drinking, quarreled with his 
partner. 

Elyria, O., Nov. 7. — Charles Manning shot and in- 
stantly killed his wife and shot her cousin, Mrs. W. R. 
White, last night. Then he completed his work b}^ 
killing himself. Mrs. Manning had commenced divorce 
proceedings, and her husband had frequently threatened 
to kill her. At the time of the tragedy the two women 
were returning from church, when Manning, wild with 
drink, carried his threat into execution. Mrs. White 
will survive, but the two others are dead. They left 
one child, a girl. The deed was premeditated, for a 
long letter from the murderer to his relatives explain- 
ing his course was found. The grounds of the divorce 
were drunkenness and abuse. 

East Saginaw, Mich., May 1. — John Burns, a young 
farm hand, doing odd jobs near Bridgeport, got into a 
row, while frenzied with drink, with a man named 
Masters, when James McMichael, aged 22 and a farmer 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 174 

residing near, interfered. Upon this Burns made a 
terrible assault with a knife upon McMichael, thrusting 
it deep into the right lung, arm and shoulder, almost 
severing the right hand, as McMichael grasped the 
sharp blade, trying to ward off the deadly attack. 

Dr. Benjamin has just telephoned that there is no 
hope of the wounded man's recovery. McMichael's 
assailant is still at large, but officers are in pursuit. 
He is sux-)posed to be hiding in the woods. 

Postoria, O., July 14. — Word has just reached this 
city of a case of paternal cruelty at Pemberville, a 
small town north of this city. William Cook, a section 
foreman on the Columbus, Hocking Valley & Toledo 
railroad, while in a drunken condition, went to the 
beds where his four children were sleeping and made a 
murderous assault upon them with a mattock handle. 

The crazy father picked one of the children up and 
dashed him against the wall and ceiling, inflicting 
injuries that will prove fatal. The entire village is up 
in arms and lynching is strongly talked of. Two or 
more of the children will die. 

The New York Tribune of Tuesday says: Mamie King 
died last Friday. Sunday night all the friends of the 
family gathered in a little four room flat to see the last 
of the dead girl. Mamie's body lay in her coffin covered 
by a wealth of flowers and wreaths. Mrs. King was 
explaining to the neighbors that her husband could not 
be found. She said, "I am afraid he has come to some 
harm." 

At that moment King burst open the door and lurched 
into the place. He was drunk and his clothes were 
covered with mud. He stared around vacantly for a 
few minutes, looking aimlessly at the crowd. Then he 
began to make a noise. 



175 TO EVERY 

"Can't you see, Bob," cried his wife, "Mamie's 
dead?" 

"You're a li^r," shouted King; "she ain't nussin of 
the sort." 

Then his temper got beyond bounds, and King struck 
his wife a terrific blow in the face, knocking her across 
the coffin in which lay the dead body of her daughter. 
Then he drove the guest out of the room with a chair, 
and ended by knocking the coffin down from its rest 
and breaking it all to pieces, while the body of the 
young girl rolled out on the floor. Even that sight did 
not sober him, and he turned his attention to his 
daughter who was alive, hitting her in the face and 
kicking her. 

Mrs. King threw open the window and yelled for 
help. Policeman Haggerty rushed upstairs and caught 
King just as he was about to hit his daughter Alice 
with the leg of a chair. He fought hard while on the 
way to the station house. 

King was brought before Justice Simms yesterday 
morning. Neither his wife nor daughter would make a 
complaint and he was discharged with a re^Drimaud. 

Battle Creek, Mich., Feb. 5. — John Bremer went home 
drunk this morning and, snatching his 3 -weeks-old child 
from the cradle dashed it to the floor. The child is 
fatally injured, and the father has been arrested. 

Mrs. Bremer tells the following story: Bremer, who 
has been out of work for some time, went down- town 
and returned within a couple of hours, drunk. He was 
ugly and quarreled with his wife. In a fit of rage he 
seized the babe, which was asleep in the cradle, and 
threw it on the floor and then kicked it. 

The mother, frantic with grief at the sight of her 
child murdered before her eyes, pushed the inhuman 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 176 

father aside and lakin*^- her babe from the floor, wliere 
it lay unconscious, ran to a neighbor's. 

Medical aid was at once summoned, but the little one 
was injured on the head and back of the skull. The 
prospects of its recovery are very doubtful. 

The mother, who has just left her bed, is also in a 
precarious condition. As soon as the result of the 
child's injuries are ascertained the father will be dealt 
with by the authorities. 

Milford, Conn., Nov. 30. — A horrible discovery was 
made today in a farm house six miles above here by the 
neighbors of Michael Hennessey, an old farmer who has 
long been known as a quarrelsome fellow. For over a 
week neither Hennessey nor his wife has been seen 
about the farm. The bleating of the cattle in the barn 
annoyed the neighbors so much that this morning they 
made an investigation. They found Hennessey's wife 
unconscious in a room in the house without any clothing 
and her body a mass of burns, the flesh in many places 
being rolled up on her body. Her husband was lymg 
on the floor, stni)id from the effects of drink. Mrs. 
Hennessey, as well as she could, told the neighbors that 
her husband, a week ago last Wednesday, while drunk 
took hold of her and dragged her to the open Are place 
and pushed her in over the blazing logs, setting her 
clothes afire. He looked on with great delight while 
she burned and holding her there, laughed at her 
agony. He refused to call in medical assistance after- 
ward, and the woman suffered untold pain for a week. 
The physicians say that gangrene has set in and she 
cannot live. Hennessey lias been arrested and will 
probably be lynched. 

Port Huron, Mich , May (3. — A brutal murder occurred 
at the saloon and bottling works of Si)ray & Latimer, 



177 TO EVERY 

in this city, Saturday night. About 10 o'clock a young 
German named Otto Samberg entered the place in an 
intoxicated condition. Being in a quarrelsome mood, 
he soon started a fight with a teamster named Charles 
Mills, knocking him down. The bartender, Harry 
Axvv^orthy, interfered at this juncture and ordered the 
crowd out of . the saloon. Outside Samberg became 
very noisy and again attacked Mills, who is a small 
man. Axworthy went to the door to quell the disturb- 
ance, when Samberg, now in a terrible rage, drew a 
large pocketknife and attacked him. He struck him a 
blow on the top of his head, driving the blade through 
the skull into the brain, and breaking the blade off even 
with the skull. Not content with this, he struck his 
victim several times on the head with the stump of the 
knife, Axworthy finally falling to the sidewalk. The 
crowd then dis^oersed, and friends of Axworthy carried 
him to the residence of Dr. Harris, where two other 
physicians were called. 

Yesterday morning a knife blade two and one -half 
inches long was extracted from Axworthy's head. The 
skull showed the indenttitions made by the stump of 
the knife in the hands of Samberg. 

Axworthy never regained consciousness and died at 
2 o'clock yesterday afternoon. 

Samberg was arrested yesterday morning and is now 
in jail. He does not deny the crime and claims that it 
was done in self defense; that Axworthy and several 
others attacked him. He is an employe and stock- 
holder in the Samberg brewery, and although he does 
not bear a very good reputation, was never in serious 
trouble before. 

Axworthy formerly lived in Toronto, where he has 
wealthy parents. He leaves a wife and tvv'o children. 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 178 

Wilkesbarre, Oct. 13. — As the result of a drunken 
riot at Maltby, a Huntrarian settlement near this city, 
last nifirht, on^ person was instantly killed, two fatally 
wounded and two other seriously injured. The killed 
and injured are: 

George Sivosky, aged 17, head blown to pieces; Lizzy 
Fosky, age If), shot in back and abdomen, cannot 
recover; John Jenkins, aged 2^, shot in abdomxcn and 
left hand blown olT, cannot live; Maggie Moore, aged 
44, shot in both legs, left knee shattered, will recover. 

A Slav named Michael Paloski was the cause of the 
wholesale shooting. He went to the saloon of John 
Moore and started a quarrel. On being ordered out of 
the saloon he started for home to procure a shotgun. 
On the way back to tlie saloon he encountered Dan 
Ryan, who was sitting on a i">orch, together with Lizzie 
Fosky and Maggie Moore. Ryan advised Paloski to go 
home, but the latter, who was in a terrible rage, raised 
his gun and fired. The two girls received most of the 
shot and fell to the porch shrieking with pain and with 
blood spurting from the wounds. 

John Moore, wlio had been attracted by the shooting, 
quickly picked up his sister and Ryan gathered up the 
Fosky girl in his arms and both made a rush for the 
door to escape the enraged Slav. Before they were 
able to get inside the drunken fiend emptied the con- 
tents of the second barrel into the girls, Moore receiving- 
part of the load in his knee. 

The shooting attracted a large crowed and Paloski was 
joined by two of his countrymen, who were also suj)- 
•plied with guns. John Jenkins attempted to arrest 
Paloski, when he received a load of shot in his stomach. 

The crowd rushed upon the Slavs and attempted to 
disarm them, but ihe tliiee men escaped into a boarding 



179 TO EVERY 

house and barricaded the door. They thrust their heads 
through a window and threatened to kill the first person 
who attempted to enter the house. 

People living on the opposite side of the street, 
attracted by the shooting, thrust their heads out of the 
windows. One of these was George Sivosky. One of 
the Slavs seeing the head of the boy, took deliberate 
aim and fired, the full charge striking the unfortunate 
boy in the left side of the head, tearing half of the head 
and face away. The boy fell dead. 

The murderers finding no more human beings to shoot 
turned their guns on the lighted windows, posts and 
trees, and anything their fancy suggested. After all 
had become quiet, several men armed with revolvers 
and shot guns, went to the house to arrest them. The 
door of the house was found open, however, and the 
men nowhere to be found. Two men were arrested at 
Kingston today on suspicion. 

Think of it: 6,532 such murders as these committed 
annually, or one murder every hour and twenty minutes 
the year round, mainly to furnish an easy job for 
depraved rumsellers and grog for reckless drinkers. 
These are only sample accounts of what may be found 
in almost any daily paper of large circulation. Does 
that look like protection to the weak? Innocent children 
playing upon their own porches are shot down by 
drunken beasts. Can you say that liquor is not respon- 
sible for these crimes? Could there be any possible 
motive for the murder of those innocent girls by that 
drunken Slav? The effect of the alcohol had been to 
madden him and to convert what had been a harmless . 
creature into a wild beast. Like nearly all others of 
his class he was ignorant and had not the ability nor 
possibly the inclination to study his own condition, and 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 180 

as a 1-esult of the combination innocent lives were taken. 
Those murders occurred in Pennsylvania where the 
number of saloons is limited by law, and a large tax is 
annually paid. 

The specious argument is often made that men drink 
liquor to enable them to commit crime. Are there any 
presumptions raised in these cases that such is the case? 
Suppose that theory to be apj^licable in some cases it 
does not lessen its responsibility greatly, for if a man 
would not commit a crime without the aid t)f liquor then 
it must become apparent that it is at least an accomplice. 
On general principles the more bad uses a thing can be 
put to the less desirable does it become for that reason. 
Men may "fortify" themselves with liquor to nerve 
themselves to commit crime, but the chances are two to 
one that liqour has long since gotten in its deadly work 
on the criminal, in corruj^ting his wiiole being making 
it possible for him to form the criminal intent. Please 
do not let that fact escape your- mind, for it has l)een 
quite fairly j)roven in what we have already shown. 

Again accepting as true for arguments sake that men 
drink liquor to enable them to commit crimes it only 
establishes then, that liquor dulls the sensibilities and 
causes men to commit crime. If the effect upon a per- 
son is to make it easy to commit crime when he drinks 
it for that jDurpose, it is hard to see why it would not 
have that same effect if he drank it thoughtlessly or 
when on a sj^ree. Intent cuts a very small figure with 
the effect which alcoholic poison has upon the human 
system. Poison will kill a man if he takes it whether 
he intends it to or not. 

Every year the criminal calendar is full of just such 
crimes as the ones heretofore mentioned, showing 
clearly that liquor and those engaged in the sale there- 



181 TO EVERY 

of are responsible for it. For, we cannot forget that 
the whole influence of the liquor traffic is toward a 
larger and more general consumption of strong drink. 
Men who now drink and become criminals would not do 
so were it not for the influence of the men engaged in 
the sale of strong drink. They form the bed-rock for 
the whole liquor movement and are absolutely and 
solely responsible for the depraved habits of the great 
mass of drunkards who have become addicted to the 
use of strong drink through their personal inducew.ents. 
We do not think that it can be proven that it is not a 
prolific source of crime and death. We know of no 
reputable person who has ever undertaken in any 
rational way to prove that it is not. Senator D. B. Hill 
of New York, one of the most prominent exponents of 
the liquor traffic, while he was not reported to have 
made any attempt to show that the liquor traffic was not 
a producer of crime, was reported to state that any 
business would produce death if engaged in to any 
extent. This statement has been accepted by some as 
conclusive evidence that the traffic stands upon just as 
fair a basis as any other kind of business. An exami- 
nation into the theory reveals its sophistry. 

The first question to be answered is: How and for 
what purposes were these people killed? The answer 
to the first question is: They were killed in cold blood 
by drunken madmen, a large number of them being 
mad had no purpose in doing the deed. Others are 
debased and dehumanized by it and murder for money 
and to gratify lust. 

The answer to the second question is: They are 
murdered as the result of the operation of the liquor 
traffic. The question which then arises is: For what 
purpose is the liquor traffic operated? The answer is: 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 182 

To supply liquor as a beverage to the people, which 
liquor contains a x^oisonous iiig^redient that produces an 
unnatural effect upon the system. What gratification 
does it afford the people? Simply the pleasure of taste 
and the peculiar influence which the poiscm has upon 
their nervous sj^stems. Reduced to its lowest terms 
we may say that the liquor traffic is operated by the 
criminal element of so 'iety to furnish a poisonous drink 
to the people to delight their tastes and fancies, and 
iliroughits operation over 6,000 persons are annually 
murdered. We say murdered not killed. There is a 
great difference between murder and kill. The one is 
often the result of innocent and unavoidable accident 
but the other is always a crime. In other words the 
difference is the difference between accident — in most 
cases — and an overt act, the result being death in both 
cases. 

The operation of a railroad may cause death by 
accident, but it cannot oe tr\dy said that it causes 
murder. We are not complaining against the liqour 
traffic because its carts and drays occasionally run over 
a child and kill it. That is the result of accident, and 
in that respect the business is put upon the same level 
with all other businesses. But in behalf of all decent 
and honorable businesses and business men w^e do want 
to resent the imputation of Senator Hill that they 
occupy a level with saloon keepers and that it is the 
iuherent character of their businesses to produce 
murder. Farms, stores, mills and factories are ope- 
rated with the consent of all enlightened human beings 
as a matter of necessity in a civilized country. All 
men and woman are willing to take the risks arising 
from their operation as life coukl not be mnintainod 
without them. But with the liquor traffic it is far 



183 TO EVERY 

different. Liquor for beverage purposes is not a neces- 
sity, and at most it pays mighty poor dividends to those 
who use it according to Senator Hill's own statement 
hereafter given. 

'Che traffic is operated against the wishes of a large 
part of our people, no doubt a majority for the women 
have never had a chance to vote against it, and the 
history of centuries shows that it cannot be operated 
without causing the murder of innocent persons, who, 
not only do not patronize it but who are opposed to it. 
And this is all done not to supply a rational or desirable 
want, nor to gratify an honorable ambition, but to 
satisfy debased appetites, and to tickle the nerves of 
the palates and tongues of drinkers. 

Further than that every one has an inherent right to 
till the earth or to sell produce, clothing and the neces- 
saries of life, but the highest tribunal in this land laid 
•down the law that the right to sell intoxicating liquors 
does not inhere in any one, and that as a means of pro- 
tecting itself the State has a right to prohibit it 
■altogether. Does the Senator think that the State has 
the constitutional right to prohibit the sale of the neces- 
saries of life? That the Senator can see no difference 
l3etween this and any other business seems strange in- 
deed. Were it not for the fact that the liquor traffic is 
patronized and championed by men in high social and 
political positions it would have been frowned out of 
society long ago. But what else than a continuance of 
this monstrous business can be expected when men in 
iiigh social and political positions are regular users of 
it, and keep every variety of brand in their own cellars? 
What must be the effect upon ignorant and vicious 
dram sellers and their followers to have their cause 
championed by such men as Senator Hill who, with an 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 1 H4 

effrontery simply astonishing, denounced the oath 
bound police commissioners of New York for doing 
their sworn duty? Never was a worse anarchy promul- 
gated in Hay Market square than that taught by this 
Senator, masquerading as a statesman before the grand 
stands of public prejudices, ignorance and popular 
vices. 

The laws of every state compell every principal or 
subordinate executive officer, w^hen he takes possession 
of his offices, to take an oath, that he will support the 
constitution and laws of the state. Neither their oaths 
nor the laws leave any discretion with them as to what 
laws shall or shall not be enforced. We would soon 
have a grand specimen of government if the right of 
nullilication were to be reposed in the executive branch 
of government, to be used at its discretion. There 
would be no use of legislative or judicial branches of 
government at all, and we would soon have a practical 
despotism. It violates every principle of representa- 
tive government, and yet it is the exact doctrine taught 
by this Senator who pretends to represent true demo- 
cratic principles. 

When New York City says she will not obey the 
laws of the state, and threatens nullification; and when 
her cause of nullification is championed by such men as 
Senator Hill there is sufficient reason for a reiteration 
of those famous utterances sent from the White House 
to John C. Calhoun. 

We suggest that there must be something dangerously 
wrong with any man who masquerades before the world 
SiS the disciple of disciples of the school of x^opular 
sovereignty, and yet who at the same time teaches 
nullification to the executive branch of that same 
government. If it does not quite approach the linr 



185 TO EVERY 

of disloyalty it certainly amounts to the worst dema- 
gogiiery conceivable. The Senator spoke in part as 
follows: "A total abstainer myself, as you, my old 
friends and neighbors know, I should personally prefer 
that all men were temperate. I recognize the conceded 
evils of drunkenness, and so far as just laws can properly 
regulate it, so far as personal example can influence it 
and appropriate voluntary agencies can persuade men 
to avoid it, the general cause of temperance has my 
earnest sympathy and support. But my personal views 
and preferences in matters of temperance and Sunday 
observance are one thing, while legislation for the 
regulation of the conduct of others who may not agree 
with me, is quite another." 

Just read the language of the Senator: "I recognize 
the conceded evils of drunkenness, and so far as just 
laws can properly regulate it, " he says, ' ' has my earnest 
sympathy and support." Then he says in the same 
breath ' ' the regulation of the conduct of others who 
may not agree with may, is quite another thing." In 
other words- he says in one breath that he is in favor of 
the regulation of drunkenness but not in the regulation 
of the conduct of drunkards who may not agree with him 
as to that regulation. He says that he is "earnestly" 
in favor of temperance and is opposed to drunkenness 
but in deference to the wishes of drinkers and liquor 
sellers he is opposed to regulating their conduct. By 
the same reasoning, while he believes in free traae, in 
defference to the feelings of his friends who are opposed 
to it, he should be a protectionist. In other words in 
deference to the wishes of those who do not agree with 
him he should be just the opposite of what he believes 
to be right. 

There are those, too, who attribute much of the 



AMKiilL'AN CITIZEN. l^l> 

drunkenness to the bad sanitary conditions of homes, 
povert3% crowded tenements, and uninviting suri'ound- 
ings. Among those who have held to this theory are 
such well known persons as Samuel Gompers, and 
others. While these persons have never attempted to 
show that liquor was not responsible for the production 
of crime and poverty, they have expressed strong 
opinions to the effect that the conditions named were 
more largely responsible for it. An examination into 
the facts of the case will not bear out that theory to 
any extent. 

In the first place if poverty is the cause of drunken- 
ness, upon that theory the whole country should have 
been drunk in the last two years. Whereas there has 
been little more liquor drank in the last year than in 
some of the previous years. The increase in the con- 
sumption of liquor has been steady for more than a 
quarter of a century up to the last year, but the hard 
times and poverty of the people have temporarily 
checked it. It cannot be accounted for upon any other 
sensible theory. We venture to say with the resump- 
tion of better business will come the same old increase 
in the consumption of liquor. 

In the second place that theory is based upon the 
hypothesis that the whole country consists of crowded 
tenements. Now the great mass of people do not 
live in the large cities, and to those who do not that 
rule cannot apply. The facts are that there is just .as 
large a percentage of drunkenness in some of the 
smaller cities. The facts are that you may plant a 
saloon in almost any spot on this earth and it will 
'workup" a business. A modern "saloon business" 
means drunks every time. We believe the rule to be 
that a man's home is what he makes it, and not the 



187 



TO EVERY 



man is what his home makes him. This holds true of 
both sexes. What is a home anyway? Is it simply the 
pictures upon the wall? Or the furniture in the room? 
A man soon gets used to these things. If fine pictures 
were the only essentials to happiness there ought to be 
less scandal in the homes of the rich We are able to 
see that poverty and inabiliy to work coupled with 
pride may cause a man to commit larceny — a man who 



THE POVERTY THEORY EXEMPLIFIED. 




BILL IRONMOULDER. 



THE SANITARY CONDITIONS 



OF OUR BACK YARD ARE BAD, LE'SS GO AN' GIT 
DRUNK." 

JOHN CLERKSHIP, — "WE HA'NT GOT ANY PICTURES 
TPON OUR WALLS, SAY WE DO." 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 1B8 

would Steal before he would beg. We believe these cases 
are rare. But we have never mastered psychology suf- 
ficiently to understand why simple poverty should drive 
a man to drink. It is not difficult to see how that mis- 
fortune should do so for drink does act as an opiate to 
the mind. But why a man should* spend a dollar for 
beer because he has no shoes on his feet when the same 
money will get him a pair, or why a man should spend 
fifty cents for whiskey because he is hungry when fifteen 
cents would get him a meal surpasses my undei'standing. 
We cannot understand why a man should get drunk and 
be *'run in" by the police because he has no pictures 
on his walls, when one-half of his drunk money would 
get a nice picture and frame for that same wall. The 
more rational theory is that a man's love for drink 
causes him to drink. 

Right here the appologists of the liquor traffic and 
other deluded men and women bring in the argument that 
if drink does do all these things you cannot stop it for you 
cannot "ligislate men into morality." This was told to 
the Catholic Total Abstinence delegates but a day or 
so ago by one of the archbishops of that church. It 
seems very strange that after all these years of temper- 
ance work that at this late day so intelligent people as 
his excellence should think that this crusade against the 
liquor traffic is an effort to legislate men into morality. 
Such is not the case at all except as it is incidentally 
accomplished and such views are entirely out of date. 
This is the basis for the fight against the liqour traffic: 
The operation of the liquor traffic interferes with the 
constitutional rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness. We have clearly shown this. The who^.e 
body of our legal jurisprudence rests upon the basis 
that every citizen of this country should do what is 



189 TO EVERY 

right, and we apprehend that nothing would be right 
which unjustly interfered with a man's constitutional 
liberties. The first and greatest constitutional right is 
the right to live. The liquor traffic causes murder and 
stands as a menace to every man's life. It takes away 
liberty by placing burdens upon the citizen which he 
would not otherwise have to bear. It interferes with 
the pursuit of happiness by filling the homes of the 
innocent with dark despair. On the opposite side what 
have the friends of the traffic to offer to offset these 
claims of ours. Nothing, absolutely nothing but the 
right to drink grog. I go to them and say my boy was 
murdered last night by a drunken maniac such as are 
being ground out of your mill, and other members of 
my family are being threatened. I want you to help 
me stop this thing. They refuse to help. We then 
take our cases before the sovereign power to be heard. 
We each claim that our personal liberties are being 
interfered with. We are asked to state our cases. I 
state that my boy was murdered and that my life is also 
in great danger from the same source. I even bear 
scars to witness my conflict with it. I show that it has 
brought untold sorrow into my home and placed 
burdens upon me which I am unwilling to bear. Then 
the friend of the saloon is asked to state his case and 
all he has to offer in defense of his case is that he gets 
his grog out of this institution. I want to ask you 
whose liberties are being taken away and who has the 
real right to cry ' ' personal liberty, " ' ' personal liberty. " 
In whose favor should a just sovereign decide? 

This is the exact situation today: We say that the 
liquor traffic is wrong. Every man who drinks liquor 
is a supporter of it. There can he no wrong in requiring 
a yuan to do tcJiat is right. In aiming to destroy the 



191 TO EVERY 

liquor traffic for the purpose of protecting people in the 
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, if 
incidentally a drinkers drink should be taken away 
from him, it will be no attempt to "legislate him into 
morality." We simply invoke the power of the law to 
protect ourselves, and if a man happens to have that 
kind of "liberties" (?) which fall within the range of 
this law he must be made to give them up. If this is 
what the good bishop calls "legislating men into 
morality" then all men are the creatures of the law, 
for our whole jurisprudence is built upon that foun- 
dation. 

Further than that it is folly to assert that law is not 
a moralizing factor. No sensible person will doubt that 
the will of a majority crystalized into law carries with 
it moral force. Besides that we are all more or less 
susceptible to environment. Saloons are the most 
positive kind of environment. Saloons can be removed 
by law, and these environments being thus removed the 
moral character has some chance to recuperate. 

The defective person is sent to the reformatory for 
three purposes, viz: 1. As a protection to the commu- 
nity. 2. As a correction to the offender. 3. As an ex- 
ample to others. By removing the offender to other 
environments more conducive to good conduct many 
marked changes have been produced for the better in 
him. 

'Che value of these correctional institutions are being 
more appreciated, and one of their principal functions 
is to compel a change of environments and different modes 
of liviug. These institutions are all the creatures of the 
law, and nearly every remedy which they propose is 
forced upon the individuals sent there. 

When men are able to show that there is no value in 



AMERTCAN CITIZEN. 192 

correctional iiismuiions, (\specially those for children, 
then and not until then may they urge the doctrine that 
you cannot "legislate men into morality." 

Again you say: "It can never be stopped and the 
next best thing is to regulate and license it."' 

In the first place you have absolutely no proof to the 
effect that it cannot be stopi^ed. God did not put this 
traffic here as he did the everlasting hills. Man iDut it 
here and it stays here by his consent. Whatever ivas 
put here by incurs consent can be removed by his consent. 
If not why not? 

Man can remove this traffic if he will, and to say he 
will not is to charge him with a great deal of wicked- 
ness. Ai-e you ready to say, that after the men of this 
country come to fully understand the wickedness and 
the destructiveness of this institution; and the danger 
which it threatens to our republican institutions, that 
they will not remove it? Man is a progressive creature, 
capable of learning. We have the true principles on 
our side in this conflict. It is our business to teach, 
and when once we have taught and convinced we then 
have a right to expect the assistance of all who have 
come under the light of the truth. To him who is con- 
vinced of the wrongfulness of this traffic, and who does 
not oppose it we can charge disloyalty to principle and 
dishonesty to man. Are you not convinced? Are you 
not convinced that license is "pernicious in principle 
and powerless as a remedy?" It has been in operation, 
in nearly all of the states of the Union, save five, for 
upwards of a quarter of a century and the consumption 
of liquor per capita has nearly trebbled and crime has 
increased greatly. At that rate regulation will regu- 
late us as a nation into dissolution. 

Hiorh license has had a better showing than almost 



193 TO EVERY 

any other law made in the interest of furthering a great 
policy, for it has been championed by the metropolitan 
press of the whole country, and it has had the support 
of both of the great political parties. With such a 
backing for years it now presents its report showing 
that the consumption of strong drinks has steadily 
increased, and along with it crime, insanity and 
pauperism. 

In treating this great problem have we not drifted 
away from our moorings of righteousness and justice? 
Let us apply some test and see. We will take the test 
which Sir William Blackstone gives, and which is found 
in Cooley's Edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, p. 26, 
star page 48, of the first volume, and which is as fol- 
lows: In general all mankind will agree, that govern- 
ment should be reposed in such persons in whom those 
qualities are likely to be found, the perfection of which is 
among the attributes of Him who is emphatically styled 
the Supreme Being, the three grand requisites, I mean, 
of wisdom, of goodness and of power; wisdom, to dis- 
cern the real interests of the community; goodness, to 
endeavor always to pursue that real interest; and 
strength or power to carry this knowledge and inten- 
tion into action. These are the natural foundations of 
sovereignty, and these are the requisite that ought to 
be found in every well constituted frame of govern- 
ment." 

Apply these tests to our manner of dealing with this 
traffic. First is it wise to license the liquor traffic? In 
answer to that question we would say that we have 
shown that the liquor traffic cannot be operated without 
a great financial loss to the people. We have seen that 
it takes annually 11,250,000,000 out of the channels of. 
rational and useful business, that it increases taxes, 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. ^^^ 



creates crime, insanity, and pauperism, corrupts the 
morals of the people, and threatens the perpetuity of 
the nation. Is it ivise, therefore, to maintain such an 
attitude toward it? We should think not. Second, is 
it good to license the liquor traffic? I will answer you 
by asking if it is good to murder? Is it good to force 
upon innocent and unwilling people an institution which 
compels them to take one chance in one-hundred forty 
in a life time of being murdered? Is it good to force 
upon unwilling taxpayers the payment of taxes to sup- 
port the paupers, criminals, and insane persons m the 
pauperhouses, penitentiaries, and insane asylums, made 
so by an institution which they oppose? Is it good to 
force upon a man a condition in society so fraught with 
danger to his family that he daily parts with them m 
fear lest he should not see them again, and which turns 
the public thoroughfares into homes for tramps and 
loitering places for thugs and robbers? Not for any 
price or reason is it good. 

We now come to the last test, namely, poiver. Is this 
a government of strength? 

Since the close of the civil war we have heard the 
virtues of our country extolled by the fourth of July 
orators and political stump-speakers. It is a common 
expression among them, that this is "the grandest 
nation on earth. " What are we to do with these claims 
of grandeur if we are now to accept the proposition 
that we cannot conquer our own vices? Can a nation 
be said to be strong whose policies are dictated to it by 
its worst criminal element? We showed what we could 
do with wrong in the great civil war. Unless we have 
greatly deterk^rated as a people there is yet enough of 
virtue left to triumph over vice if a fair and direct test 
can be made. It is not gratifying to those who are 



195 



TO EVERY 



truly loyal and honest to hear so much said by public 
men about the glory and grandeur etc. , of the country, 
and yet at the same time see these men shrink from 
every present duty. It is just such contemptible con- 



-^7^^'^7**!: /^ ^ /l?^' onsibLe tor 




FIRST GOOD CITIZEN: — ''CRIME IS ON THE INCREASE. 
WHAT SHALL WE DO ABOUT IT?" 

SECOND GOOD CITIZEN: — "IT LOOKS AS THOUGH THE 
SALOONS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR IT, BUT DON'T 
WHISPER THAT I SAID SO FOR I AM GOING TO TRY 
TO RUN FOR SUPERVISOR NEXT SPRING." 

duct as this that has given color to the statement that 
*' it can never be prohibited, it can never be prohibited," 
etc., etc. These are only the demagogues of society 
like which every generation has known. Their conduct 
disgusts but does not daunt us. 
From the expressions of the people taken at critical 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 196 

times we arc led to believe that good yet predomi- 
nates in the hearts of the people. We know so 
many who are brave and just. So many so sen- 
sitive to the touch of wrong that we take courage 
at the thought, that when the doubts and fears, 
the dislikes and prejudices are removed this band 
shall be recruited with another " three -hundred 
thousand strong," from north and south, and from the 
east and west. The future of this republic consists in 
maintaining the character of our institutions — a govern- 
ment for, of and by the people. That means the rule 
by the majority. We must maintain that principle 
come what may. When we shall degenerate mentally, 
physically, and morally so that our laws shall be 
framed after the wishes of the minority, and for the 
interests of the minority then our free government 
becomes a failure and a monarchy becomes inevitable. 
There has never existed within our borders an insti- 
tution which has so grossly trampled upon this sacred 
principle as the liquor traffic has done. 

At one time or another many states have adopted 
prohibition, including the states of New York, Con- 
necticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, 
Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, 
Nebraska, Kansas, North and South Dakota. In all of 
these states, at the time of adoption of these laws the 
majority of the people were in favor of them. Many 
of the states adoj^ted amendments by large majorities. 
All but five of these states have repealed these laws 
because, as the claim was made, "prohibition did not 
prohibit." Reduced to its lowest terms it means, that 
while a majority had made a rule of action to protect 
themselves against a great vice the minority would not 
obey that rule. That is self evident, for if they had 



197 TO EVERY 

obeyed it prohibition would have prohibited. The cry 
of the liquor men, that "prohibition will not prohibit" 
is an open insult to the majority and an indictment of 
themselves as traitors and anarchists. It is a procla- 
mation of rebellion and insurrection. It is worse than 
secession for it does not mean an open and fair with- 
drawal, like men, from the union, but operations of 
*'bushwackers," brigands and outlaws. 

We have already spoken of the organized effort of 
the rum traffic to bring local option into disrepute by 
encouraging its criminals into the violation of the law 
with a hope of accomplishing its repeal. By a com- 
plete showing the Temperance Alliance of Kansas 
proved that the same bushwacking methods are now 
being pursued in that state. Such methods stamp 
them as the fit associates for the Klu Klux, Mafia, and 
MoUie McGuires. This is the character of the rank 
and file of the rum forces. Are you one of them? 
Men are known by the principles they advocate and by 
the company which they keep. 

Another phase of great importance attached to this 
question is the one contained in the fact that the liquor 
traffic has either gathered together the most unpatriotic 
set of men ever represented in any business, or it has 
made them disloyal to every principle of good citizen- 
ship by its corrupt influence. This fact is manifested 
in the plain and open utterances of their, representative 
conventions. 

Not like honest and patriotic men do they go into 
conventions to declare for the greatest good to the 
greatest number. Never, as organizations, have they 
been identified with any movement for the betterment 
of humanity. Compare their conventions for an instant 
with the great Christian Endeavor Conventions where 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 198 

the truest and best of citizens are wont to gather. 
What a difference in their utterances. Good citizen- 
ship is one of the rallying cries of the endeavors but 
what is the rallying cry of the other? The Endeavors 
say: "If you believe in the schools of Jefferson or 
Hamilton be honest in your support of them. If new 
conditions come to the front be honest in your treat- 
ment of them. Keep forever in view the good of God's 
children, not self, self, SELF. 

With the dram sellers how is it? Their own utter- 
ances are the best answer to the question. We will 
take our own State of Michigan first. 

During the state campaign of 1894, the executive 
committees of the "Liquor Dealers'" and "Malsters 
Associations" of Michigan, sent out the following in- 
structions to their voters: "It is also the sense of the 
committees that we should lose sight of political 
affiliations and labor faithfully to further the candidacy 
of men irrespective of party," who would do their 
bidding. 

Also the "National Retail Liquor Dealers' Associa- 
tion," in their meeting at St. Louis, in the same year 
(1894:), passed resolutions of which the following is a 
part: "An organization of the trade is recommended 
which shall in no manner be political, but shall follow 
with greatest care all political movements and incidents. 
* * * * ^Q \io\^ to the principle of supporting 
those candidates who favor the cause of personal liberty, 
which is especially desirable in candidates for the legis- 
lature." 

Thus it will be seen that the first thought to them is 
self and country last. The only impulse which they 
seem to have ever felt is the one of self, and that to 
their distorted fancies is patriotism. The noble utter- 



199 TO EVERY 

ances of Philips, Sumner and Greely and the splendid 
sentiments enunciated by Lincoln and Webster fall 
upon their ears like the Greek language falls upon the 
ears of the savage. Not even the pathetic eloquence 
of John G. Woolley is capable of eliciting one atom of 
sympathy for the helpless victims of the dram shop. 
Take to them the s.tatistics of the Labor Commissioner, 
the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, showing the effect which 
this business has in producing crime, and they will 
respond by showing to you the latest pamphlet issued 
by the Department of State at Washington, in the 
interest* of pushing this same business into the South 
American republics. Take to them the awful accounts 
of the murder of the hundreds of innocent little children 
and helpless w^omen by the fiends of the dram-shop 
and they will reply by showing you the latest resolu- 
tion of the liquor dealers to control the next legislature 
in their interest, and they will probably threaten you 
with a boycott or a package of dynamite if you ever 
have the temerity to even mention the matter again. 
So distorted are their fancies and so utterly destitute 
of intelligence do they seem to have become, that at 
their meeting at Indianapolis in September, 1895, the 
"Liquor Dealers' Association" of Indiana declared, 
that the Nicholson temperance measure had ' ' weakened 
patriotism." 

Of course their language is so ambiguous that a per- 
fect understanding of it cannot very well be had. How- 
ever it is to be supposed, that they mean that it has had 
the same effect upon them and their customers that the 
taking away of tobacco from some smoker or whiskey 
away from some toper has upon them after they have 
taken the bi-chloride of gold cure. Their patriotism is 
a very weak kind of patriotism anyway and the com* 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 200 

biuation has resulted in "weakened patriotism." That 
is the only proper way to construe it. 

The utterance of such sentiments as those together 
with their reception to the call for a higher and better 
civilization affords us an answer to the question of the 
poet: 

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself has said 'tiiis is a man' ?" 

A glance at the police report for the city of Indiana- 
polis for the year 1894 will soon reveal the character of 
the "patriotism" of these men. In his annual report 
the chief of police says: "The battle against the viola- 
tions of the liquor law has been a constant and relent- 
less one, and will be continued. In the effort made it 
has been clearly demonstrated that law can be enforced 
if the law be capable of enforcement. It has also been 
shown that there are weaknesses in our statutes on the 
liquor traffic, and burdens placed upon the officers of 
the law in endeavoring to enforce the same, which 
should be removed and thus make its enforcement 
surer and less expensive." (Police Rejjort 1894, p. 16.) 

An examination into the records shows that on an 
average one saloon keeper out of every three or four of 
their number was arrested for some crime or misde- 
meanor, and so much attention did these criminals force 
upon the police that they were accused by a few citizens 
of "doing nothing but watching saloons." (Ibid.) 

How perfectly in keeping with their general character 
is the cry of these men that the benificent "Nicholson 
Temperance Law" was "weakening patriotism." 

The next thing in order will be for the bushwhackers 
and moonshiners of the AUeghanies to resolve that the 
laws against moonshining, horsethieving or smuggling 
are ' ' weakening patriotism . " 



201 TO EVERY 

Now the Superintendent of Police says that the- 
gambler of Indianapolis ' ' has been taught that he can 
not ply his vocation in this city, and gambler and 
gambling furniture have been removed to towns and 
cities more congenial." (Police Report, p. 15.) It is. 
now in order for the gamblers to issue an address upon 
*' weakened patriotism." The Superintendent did not 
say to what more ''congenial" cities they had gone. 
In all probability it is St. Louis, Mo., and we would 
advise the saloon keepers of Indianapolis to do likewise, 
for they are treated as dignitaries there and when over 
intoxicated they are furnished with a public escort, 
gratis, to see them safe home. (See Police Report of 
St. Louis, 1894, p. 625.) 

Again it is said that we have not strength or power 
to enforce prohibition, that the enactment of such laws 
makes hypocrites of men (as claimed by Judge Grant 
of the Mich. Suprume Court) and that therefore we 
should licence it; and thus cease to make hypocrites. 
Is that charge any less true of high licence ? What have 
you to say of the arrests of one out of every three or four 
saloon keepers annually for the violation of the license 
laws? Does that show that the change from prohibition 
to high license has made high license angels out of 
prohibition hypocrites? Shall we also repeal the law 
relative to the sale of liquor to our boys so that saloon 
keepers may not become hypocrites? We are not afraid 
to assert dogmatically and without fear of successful 
contradiction, that no prohibition law was ever 
violated oftener, nor in more different ways, nor with 
greater impunity than are these license laws, in nearly 
every city in the land. Can you honestly say that is 
not true? If you can not ' ' legislate men into morality " 
neither can you make hypocrites by law. 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 202 

To conclude we will say that we think we have shown, 
that great financial losses to the whole country jL^row, 
annually, out of this traffic; that the traffic is gradually 
eating away the moral fiber of the people; that the 
traffic is in the hands of the criminal element of society; 
that it takes away the dearest rights of the people, 
namely: the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness, and that it threatens the very existence of 
the republic. We contend that the power mentioned 
by Mr. Blackstone, applied to this country means the 
will of the majority. Can we bring to our assistance the 
majority of the people? We have reason to think so. 

In the amendment campaigns of nineteen different 
states 1,676,603 votes have been recorded for and 
1,960,994 votes against pure prohibition. This vote 
has been taken, not to give the people a chance to 
decide between free whiskey and prohibition, but to 
decide between prohibition and all other compromise 
measures such as high license, the mulct law, and 
a combination of both with local prohibition (local 
option). 

Many of these measures were untried and offered 
some flattering inducements, so flattering in fact, as to 
temporarily deceive so good and shrewd a leader as 
John B. Finch. These votes have not been a real test 
of the sentiment of the people concerning the question, 
for it has put prohibition against some flattering plan 
of license, etc. , and in view of these facts it has made a 
remarkable showing. We have simply had to give 
these experiments a trial, and it has taken time in 
which to do it. Time has fully demonstrated that 
these measures are powerless as remedies, and that 
every restrictive feature capable of affording any relief 
to the people are violated with impunity and without 



203 TO EVERY 

limit. Now, inasmuch as these laws have proven 
worthless in the effort to stop the ravages of the traffic 
we have faith to believe that the people will discard 
them and take up the old reliable method of dealing 
with all evil, namely: prohibition. There is no question 
that if the manufacture, transportation and sale of 
liquor could be stopped that the question would be 
settled. Can it be done? To get the people to do so 
we must first establish the evil character of the busi- 
ness, the barbarous outrages which it perpetrates, and 
the imminent danger which it threatens to the republic. 
We must prove to them that there is no remedy for this 
evil but prohibition and that it can be made to irroldbit. 
We will take the people to the colliseum w^here the 
tragedies are committed. We will show them the 
bloody sands of the arena, and even while the little 
children are being led into this slaughter pen and 
stand under the bloody knives of the rum fiends we will 
ask them in the name of God and suffering humanity to 
break their glasses and to turn their thumbs down to the 
release of these little ones. Then we thrill apply the 
test and ascertain our power; and may Almighty God 
have mercy upon us if the public conscience is found to 
be so dead as to fail to respond to the call. 

God give us men. A time like this demands, 
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; 
Men whom the lust of office does not kill; 

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; 
Men who possess opinions, and a will; 

Men who have honor, men who will not lie; 
Men who can stand before a demagogue, 

And scorn his treacherous flatteries without winking; 
Tall men, sun crowned, who live above the fog 
In public duty and in private thinking. 
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds. 
Their loud professions and their little deeds, 



205 



TO EVERY 



Mingle in selfish strife— lo freedom weeps, 
Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps. 

John G. Holland. 

Most respectfully yours, 




Grand Rapids, Mich., Sept. 30th, 1895. 

TO EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN, 
UNIONTOWN, U. S. A. 

Dear Sir: — 

Since writing you last the inquiry has been made as 
to how prohibition can be brought about and made to 
succeed. My answer to that question is, that we who 
are friends of temperance must unite. "In union there 
is strength." We have been divided so long over the 
question of "how to do it" that our forces have become 
demoralized in the many successive defeats which we 
have suffered, and the opinion has become current that 
we "cannot succeed." In union only is there strength. 
You ask: upon what basis can we unite? Upon jyrohi- 
bition. The great mass of temperance people believe 
in and cling to it. Other methods of dealing with the 
traffic have signally failed and prohibition is our only 
hope. How shall we proceed to get it? "Where there 
is a will there is a way." 

In the first place we have never given prohibition the 
support which it demanded and which can be given it 
by its friends if proper means are used. The traffic is 
a desperate one and all the wicked, degenerate sons of 
Adam are behind it. It cannot be put down as a 
milliner would trim a hat, nor as a dude would salute 



207 TO EVERY 

his lady admirer. There must first be union of all the 
friends of the cause upon one basis. ' 'United we stand, 
divided we fall." We might as well understand that 
first as last. With millions of dollars at their command 
with an unscrupulous class of followers to terrorize, 
intimidate, boycott, assault and murder me must 'present 
a united front. We can conquer if we will. We have 
shown repeatedly in times past that we can vote prohi- 
bition into constitutions. We have done so, but after 
having done so we leave them to their fate. No sup- 
plementary laws have been passed by Congress to 
strengthen them. We have voted the traffic out in 
many states but the policy of the general government 
has not changed at all toward the state. There is 
reason to believe that not one half gallon per capita 
would be consumed for beverage purposes by the 
13eople of Kansas, in a year, w^ere it not for the fact 
that the general government grants to any one in any 
of the x)rohibitory states a license to retail liquor, who 
will pay the |25 tax, and give them the full rights of 
inter-state commerse. The worst boot-leggers and 
bush- wackers of Kansas exhibit the red card of ' ' Uncle 
Sam" and accept the privileges of inter-state commerse 
without restraint from the general government, to ship 
liquor into the state to be sold in violation of the law 
wherever they can succeed in doing it. Were it not 
for the inter- state traffic in liquor there would hardly 
be a vestige of it left in Kansas today. 

The attitude of the general government toward the 
states should be like the attitude of a parent toward a 
child. Its interests should be protected and its policies 
when constitutional and lawful should be ujDheld. Any 
other attitude will breed disloyalty and rebellion, and it 
deserves to do so. Instead of maintaining this attitude 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 208 

a vastly different one has been maintained. Read 
again the statement of the Collector of Internal 
Revenue of Iowa, that he had issued -!32 more liquor 
"permits" for that state than he did the year before. 
' ' Uncle Sam *' must have thought that Iowa had a sudden 
influx of druggists. No attention seems to have been 
paid to the matter of who was applying for those 
government jiermits. The worst anarchist of the cen- 
tury could get a ''permit" to sell liquor by paying the 
tax when, at the same time, the ofiicers of the general 
government knew that none but pharmacists or drug- 
gists were entitled to the right to sell liquor in that 
state. What a spectacle to behold in any modern 
government. A state struggling desperately against 
a great public enemy and at the same time the federal 
officers sneeringly look on and openly give aid and 
comfort to the enemy instead of rendering such assist- 
ance as might be properly given to aid in the enforce- 
ment of law. The power to render this assistance lies 
in Congress. 

During the days of secession the federal government 
lashed with cords of fire the State of South Carolina 
back into the Union. But now, under the administra- 
tion of a political power of her own faith, her state 
laws are trampled upon by the criminals of society 
under government sanction for a price. The federal 
authorities know very well, that the people of both 
South Carolina and Iowa voted the liquor traffic out of 
the state upon a test vote. Why do they not respect 
the wishes of the people of those states. Has the 
government become a despotism in the interest of the 
outlaws of the states. Can it expect or should it 
expect to command the unreserved respect, loyalty and 
devotion of the states so long as it maintains such a 



209 



TO EVERY 




MISS SOUTH CAROLINA TO UNCLE SAM:— ''UNCLE 
SAM, IN 1865 YOU WHIPPED ME FOR TRYING TO FORCE 
SLAVERY UPON YOU, AND NOW YOU OUGHT TO BE 
WHIPPED FOR FORCING BLIND TIGERS UPON ME." 



disrespectful attitude toward them? If such a course 
will not breed disloyalty, what will? It was but a few 
nights ago that the ex- Governor (now Senator) Till- 
man of South Carolina, at Prohibition Park, N. Y. , 
complained of the treatment of the general government 
toward this state in their effort to control the liquor 
traffic under the dispensary system. 

It is said that the federal "permit" confers no right 
to sell liquor in prohibitory territory contrary to the 
local law. Be that as it may if the "permit" confers. 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 210 

uo power or ri^rht then we submit that the g:eneral 
government is engaged in a wholesale swindling busi- 
ness by taking twenty-tive dollars from men without 
giving back a valuable equivalent. That in and of itself 
would be disgraceful and beneath the dignity and 
honor of any respectable nation on eartli. If the 
federal government confers no power or right when it 
grants a "permit" then it seems to me that it swindels 
every individual who gives twenty-five dollars for one. 
Esj^ecially is it true in every case where the holder of 
such *' permit" does not intend to comj^jly with the 
state laws. The honor and integrity of this nation 
demands that no "permit" be granted to an individual 
who does not show at the time he obtains such ' ' per- 
mit " that the aj^plicant is entitled under the local law 
to lawfully transact business under such "permit." 
To do otherwise is a fraud and swindle and savors 
strongly of obtaining money under false pretenses. 

Further than that every time the federal govej-nment 
grants a "j^ermit" to a "jointist" or "boot-legger" 
of a prohibitory district it lends its whole moral in- 
fluence to illicit liquor selling, lawlessness and anarchy. 
Furthermore it does say in substance: "I am not con- 
cerned at all in what you do with this 'permit.' All I 
ask of 5^ou is the payment of $25 and I will grant you 
immunity from prosecution by the federal authorities." 
Such a i^rinciple lacks every element to be found in a. 
sensitive, refined and enlightened government. 

Again it is possible that the government does confer 
a right, power or jn-ivilege in granting these "permits." 

In the first place when Congress passed the ' ' original 
package" law it prohibited the transportation and sale 
of liquor from one state into another to be sold in 
unbroken packages contrary to state law. Today we 



211 TO EVERY 

see the same power granting immunity from prosecu- 
<3ution by the federal officers, upon the receipt of S25, 
to anyone who desires to violate that law badly enough 
to pay the money. Thus we behold the modern 
spectacle of the federal government saying to the 
liquor traffic: "If you ship liquor into Kansas I hereby 
declare that you shall sell it subject to the conditions of 
the prohibitory law in force there, but if you conclude 
to sell it I will gaurantee to you immunity from federal 
molestation upon the receipt of 825. " Such conduct in a 
person would seem like a strange indiosyncrasy indeed. 

It is a case of refusal and consent flowing from the 
same fountain at the same time, and in ordinary 
matters of life it would seem like an impossibility. ~ 

It is said that the federal "permit" is only a receipt 
for the payment of a tax. Is it possible to tax nothing? 
These "jointists" get no thing or right from the state. 
If the federal government grants no right or privilege, 
then what does it tax? Since the state grants no right 
or privilege to these illicit liquor sellers, it seems to us 
that it follows that the federal government either 
grants a right or privilege or taxes nothing and com- 
mits a fraud and swindle by obtaining money under 
false pretenses. 

We contend that the - general government has the 
right to prohibit the inter-state traffic in intoxicating 
liquors. If it has that right it should exercise it to the 
fullest extent needed to protect the interests of the 
states. The selling of liquor in unbroken packages 
shipped in from another state is a part of an inter- state 
commerce transaction, so recognized by Congress and 
the courts. To grant a "permit" to sell those unbro- 
ken packages we contend is conferring a power or 
granting a privilege to violate the spirit if not the 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 212 

intent of the original package law, and to that extent 
contravenes that law. We contend that the federal 
"permit" is incompatible with the federal original 
package law which prohibits the transportation and 
sale of an unbroken original package of liquor from 
one state into another contrary to the laws of that state. 

There is not a brewery nor a distillery in these prohi- 
bitory states. How could liquor be sold therein if the 
chanuel of inter-state commerse were to be closed 
against the traffic y These thoughts have suggested a 
policy which it seems to me that the friends of temper- 
ance could unite upon, and which would put within our 
grasp means sutticient to sustain a prohibitory policy 
v.'herever it could be established. Such a policy I 
would outline as follows: 

First. Congress should pass an act making it unlaw- 
ful for any person or jDcrsons to transport alcoholic 
liquors into any state maintaining a state disi^ensary 
law, or into any state after it shall have, jxissed such laws. 
Fix adequate penalties for the violation of such laws. 
Make the shipper, transporter, buyer and seller alike 
guilty parties. Make all liquors liable to seizure which 
do not bear the state stamp. 

Second. I would have every prohibitory state assume 
state control of the manufacture and sale of liquor for 
medicinal and mechanical purposes, under civil service 
regulations, and I would have licensed pharmacists in 
certain desirable localities, under bonds for the faithful 
l)erformance of their duties, paid certain salaries for 
the sale of these liquors for such purposes. This 
would remove the temptation of the druggists to sell 
lifiuor illegally for profit. Sell all liquors at cost 
prices. This would insure to the people pure liquor at 
the lowest possible price. 



213 TO EVERY 

It is evident that if no liquor could be made in a pro- 
hibitory state, and none could be shipped into such 
state the traffic would be ready for burial. The dis- 
pensary system for medicinal and mechanical purposes 
would be a small business at most, and it could be easily 
handled by the state. Thought as to detail could easily 
perfect the system. With but one person in small 
places and a few more in larger places, legally quali- 
fied to sell it for medicinal or mechanical purposes 
the eyes of the whole community would be upon 
them, and there are good reasons to believe that great 
caution would be used by all dispensers in the sale 
thereof. A state officer would know how much liquor 
was shipped from time to time to different places and 
by comparing one community with another it could be 
easily determined if too much liquor was being sold at 
that place. There would be but little difficulty in 
enforcing such a law as compared to the enforcement 
of a law where a dozen or a hundred druggists of every 
shade of character and a score of dive keepers all hold 
federal "permits" to sell liquor. 

The question might be asked if such a law would be 
constitutional. We think that it would. The constitu- 
tion gives Congress the power to ' ' regulate commerce 
with foreign powers and between the several states." 
That is the substance of it and in accordance with that 
power it passed the "original package law" making 
the "original package" subject to the laws of the state 
where it is to be sold. In Illinois the original package 
is subject to high license laws and in Maine it is subject 
to the prohibitory laws. If Congress could enact a law 
making the sale of the "original package" subject to a 
different law than the one under which it was made it is 
difficult to see why it could not directly prohibit the 



AMERICAN CITIZEN 214 

shipping of it into that state altogether. The Supreme 
Court in its early decissions held that Congress had 
almost unlimited power over commerce. In the "ori- 
ginal package'' case (43 Fed. Rep 653) the court held 
that a state could not prohibit the shipping and sale of 
an original package from one state into another, but 
that Congress could. In the case of the United States 
vs. Craig, 28 Fed. Rep., 795, the court said that the 
prohibiting of the shipping of contract labor from a 
foreign country into our own was within the pow-ers of 
Congress to "regulate commerce with foreign powers. " 
By the last decission the court construed the word 
"regulate" also meaning to "prohibit," and the ori- 
ginal package decision decided that Congress has the 
power to make a special regulation for a special state. 
From these decisions it would seem that Congress has 
full power to meet these cases. 

Further than that it is probable that Congress has 
the legal authority under her police powers to control 
the matter. 

Third. Could the federal government enforce such 
a law? In answer to the question we would say that 
according to the revenue reports "moon- shining" is 
almost entirely wiped out of the country. Of all 
violaters of the liquor laws comparatively few of them 
are -without the federal ' ' permit. " Persons who violate 
state and county laws with impunity are very sure to 
get a federal ' ' license " to sell. There is nothing that a 
liquor law violator fears so much as a federal marshall. 
An arrest means a conviction three times out of four. 
There are reasons for this fear for the trials of these 
cases are usually upon their merits. None but the best 
of juries get into these courts. In the next place few 
men care to be arrested and dragged away a hundred or 



215 TO EVERY 

two of miles to a federal court to be tried away from 
home among strangers. It takes all of the sport out of 
the case. There are not quite so many " nolprosequis " 
as there are in so many institutions which are commonly 
called "county courts." 

Further than that if rail road companies and their 
employees could be held as accomplices where it could 
be shown that they knowingly aided and abetted in the 
commission of the offense they would soon make it 
impossible to smuggle much liquor over their lines. 
The rail road companies as a rule are not very favor- 
ably inclined toward the liquor traffic. All wholesalers 
and shippers would become amenable to this law as 
well as all concerned in whatever violated it. 

The idea of state control may be distasteful to some, 
but to them we would say that police measures are not 
founded upon sestheticism. We are looking for a rem- 
edy for this curse, one upon which all opponents of the 
saloon can unite. We want prohibition and we want 
the kind of prohibition that will prohibit. We do not 
believe that as long as our federal government permits 
the shipping of liquor into prohibitory territory and 
grants the right to sell it to any miscreant who will 
pay the $25 tax, that prohibition will be or can be made 
a practical success in the great majority of our states. 
This is why we ask that the inter- state traffic in intoxi- 
cating liquors between prohibition and other states be 
stopped. If the inter- state traffic be stopped then the 
states must assume control of the manufacture and sale 
thereof for medicinal and mechanical purposes. With 
the help of the federal government we believe prohibi- 
tion can be enforced in any state with sufficient temper- 
ance sentiment to adopt a prohibitory amendment to 
the constitution by a popular vote. 



AMERICAN CITIZEN. 



216 




UNCLE SAM PROTECTING THE RIGHTS OF THE STATES. 



Our prohibition states are like our country was during 
the revolution. Their greatest enemies are outside of 
their borders. Dakota can manage the criminals with- 
in her own borders, but she cannot very well success- 
fully fight the rum power of the whole world. Give 
Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, nearly the 
whole south, and many of the eastern states the assur- 
ance that prohibition will prohibit, and they can be 
swung into line for that policy. We feel sure that 
Michigan could be carried by a good majority. 

In this way we could give prohibition or the dispen- 
sary system a fair chance— a chance that neither of 
them has ever had. 



217 TO EVERY 

Unless we do get together we are firm in the belief 
that we shall lose every prohibitory law in the Union. 
Some of them now hang by a very brittle thread. 
Something must be done to strenghten the confidence 
of the people in prohibition. We cannot afford to lose 
another state. Much as we would like to see prohibi- 
tion triumph all along the line we must not lose these 
states in the effort. 

The temperance people of the prohibition states 
should at once get together and ask Congress for such 
Sb law through a flood of petitions; and by systematic 
efforts directly impress that desire upon their minds. 
Without a single petition Congress passed the original 
package law. Maine and Kansas may be able to en- 
force their laws satisfactory to themselves, but if they 
desire to see prohibition generally triumph they will 
be willing to change their policies a little so as to 
give confidence and strength to the movement else- 
where. 

Carry prohibition through to the end sought for by 
all prohibitionist, viz. : National prohibition of the liquor 
traffic except for medicinal, mechanical, and sacramental 
purposes and where will you get the liquor for all these 
things reserved. How can you get liquor for medicinal 
purposes if the distilleries and breweries are all closed? 
That is precisely what National prohibition means un- 
less the states reserve the power to make it, and how 
can this be done unless they assume the direct control 
of it. The very object for which we are all contending 
forces us to adopt the plan of state control of the traffic 
for those purposes. Maine and Kansas prohibitionists 
may as well begin the solution of that problem now, and 
thus help their ow^n cause when it needs it. Men cannot 
get alcohol from Illinois when the distilleries are closed 



AMERICAN CITIZEN 21H 

in that and other states. Let us solve that problem now 
and give the cause a general boom . 

What we desire to impress upon the minds of ail 
advocates of the sux)pression of the saloon is the need 
of saving all prohibitory territory and to agree upon 
some plan at the i^rcscnt time that will force the issue 
upon the country. The states should be protected in 
their rights by the federal government. That j^rinciple 
is already recognized by our enemies. Senator Tillman 
and all those interested in the dispensary system are 
just as much interested in establishing such a policy as 
are the prohibitionists of Maine or Kansas. Senator 
Tillman says he is ready to make the fight in the Senate 
for such a policy, viz. : The suppression of the inter- 
state liquor traffic. It is precisely the i')olicy that pro- 
hibitionists want. The congressmen from Maine and 
probably some from Kansas, the Dakotas and South 
Carolina and other states would take a hand in the dis- 
cussion. It would be a great relief indeed if the halls of 
Congress could resound with temperance oratory. The 
long silence has become oppressive and midnight 
revelry too oi^ii and too disgusting to tolerate any 
longer. The government cannot afford to put itself on 
record as being unwilling to help the states to carry out 
a constitutional policy which they have adopted. Let 
Kansas, Maine, Vermont and the Dakotas in a formal 
way, backed by petitions from other states show to 
Congress the need and desirableness of its help in this 
matter. Let the showing be made strong and then, if 
assistance is refused, a good foundation \vill be laid for 
a union of all lovers of freedom into one organization 
which shall make it possible for us to realize in fact as 
well as in fancy, that this is a government for the people, 
of the people and by the people — people not criminals. 



219 TO EVERY 

" Shall a people that fetter the lightning's wing 

Not triumph over the wine cup's sting? 

Shall a man so famed on many a hill 

Not triumph over the vat and still? 

Yea, the traffic shall yet be the wide world's scorn; 

The battle shall yet to the gate be borne, 

Not yield in the presence of Columbia's curse, 

One foot to the greed of the vender's purse." 

Yours most respectfully, 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Accidents caused by liquor 22 

Aniendinents, how defeated 16() 

Aniendinents, vote on 202 

Hellamy, Edward 55 

lUackstone, tests of government 193 

Bread riots, causes of 40, 61 

Carlyle, Thos 18 

Charities and corrections 125 

C'hica^^o, cost of liquor in 59 

Cliristians, the attitude of 95, 110 

Church societies, utterances of 155 

Competition, character of 33 

Contfress, powers of 211 

Consumption, liquor 78 

Cost of liquor per capita 12, 18 

Cost of liquor per family 16 

Cost of living per family 13 

Coxey, Jacob 18, 57 

Crime, causes of 115, 180 

Crime, increase of 125 

Crime, police reports concerning 47, 130 

Death, difference in causing 181 

Denver, police report of 134 

Detroit, police report of 34 

Distribution of wealth 15 

Divorce, relation of traffic to 35 

Effect of liquors upon morals 147 

Ely, Prof 12, 19, 21 

Family, consumption of liquor per 16 

Farmers, effect of traffic upon 67 

Federal government, relation of, to States 207 

Forbes, murder of Mrs 98 

Fraternities, utterances of 46, 157 

( rladstone, Sir W. E 80 

( rovernment, tests of good 193 

Harvey, W. H 57 

Hill, Senator 181 

Homes, effect of traffic upon 33, 35 

Homicides, increase in 126 

Inn(x;ent persons suffer ■ 22 

Instruction, temperance 122 

Inter-state commerce 207 

Knights of Labor 36 

Labor, demoralizing effects upon 48, 52 

Labor, productive and unproductive 19 



221 INDEX. 



PAGE. 

Labor, loss of, (i) men, (2) women 29, 31 

Labor, saloon sympathy tor 11 

Labor, true level of saloon 55 

Liberty, personal 189 

License, failure of 192 

Liquor, per capita, consumption of 78 

Liquor, gals, of, per bu. Corn 85 

Liquor, total direct cost of 18 

Men, number employed by 21 

Morality, "can't legislate," etc 188 

New York temperance instruction 121 

Original package law 2lO 

Panics, causes of 9, 39 

Pauperism, increases in 125 

Personal liberty, true 189 

Permit, the federal • 207 

Pingree, Mayor 160 

Police reports 47, 130 

Poor man's club 45 

Possibilities of drinking men 16 

Poverty, not a prime cause 186 

Powderly, T. V 47 

Produce, cost via liquor traffic 34, 92 

Prohibition, how accomplished 206 

Prohibition "hypocrites made by " 201 

Prohibition, why and how repealed 196 

Public sentiment 190, 204 

R. E. companies 165 

Ratio of losses to labor 26, 28, 29 

Reform writers : 55, 57 

Saloons, danger from 170 

Saloon keepers, arrest of 159 

Saloon keepers, criminal character 159 

Saloon methods 167 

Scene at Iron Mountain 40 

Scenes of today 151 

Smith, Adam , . . . 17 

Tables showing per capita, etc 78 

Tables of comparison 26 

Taxation, excessive 43 

Train wreck in Chicago 22 

U. S. Supreme Court decisions 215 

Voters, cause of venal 46 

Wages, yearly family 13 

Wealth, distribution of 15 

Wealth, per capita of 38 

Working men, effect on 48, 55 

Working men, arrest of 47 

Wright, Carroll 1) 129 



TESTIMONIALS. 

The author bus had si'veral years experience hi tlie 
It 'ct lire tield and is open lo engagements wlienever and 
'\ herever lie oan be of service to tlie cause. Write for 

ims. The foHowing are a few press notices: 
One of the finest orators of the day." — Excelsior^ 
- • II lb L\'on. 

"Logical, forceful and full of persuasive eloquence." 
Port Hiinni Daihj Times. 

"S. D. Williams at court house last Sunday night, 
U) a crowded hou.se, gave one of the best temperance 
addresses ever delivered in Hart" — Thr Jounml, Hart. 
"Prof. S. D. Williams of Grand Rapids, deliv<'i'ed a 
powerful and convincing temperance address at the 
•ngregational churcli la.'-t Thursday evening. Has 
A' if any superiors as a convincing temperance ad vo- 
le."— T//*^ Bellalre Breeze. 

••Prof. S. D. Williams of Grand Rapids, delivered a 
•nperance lecture at the Methodist cburch Friday 
-ibt that was pronounced by the majority to be the 
>t they ever heard." — Leroy Independent. 

• Altogether Mr. Williams kept up his reputation of 
■ -ing one of the ablest lecturers on the temperance 
I'latform today." — Harbor Springs Republican. 

•The lecturer was a forceful and scholarly speaker. 
le audience was largely made up of young people and 
iV have left a lasting impression." — Tlie Linli)if/ton 

nrd. 

S. D. WILLIAMS, 

Grand Rapids. 

Michigan. 

Price of this book fifty cents for single copy, postpaid, 
two copies, seventy-five cents. 



A Great Harvest for Agents, 

HOLIDAY SALES OVER 25,000 IN ONE MONTH. 




These new Books are selliiij> faster 
and doing- more good tlian any other 
religions books on tlie market. The 
Chihlren's Edition has l'^8 pages, 
fnlly illnstrated with 4:2 hirge new 
cnts, size (>xS inches, heavy hoard 
35 cents. Cloth, (>() 
Edition, Cloth, 3t>() 
AGENTS 3IAKING 



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FROM $20.00 TO $3000 PER WEEK. 



AVERAGE SALES 10,500 PER MONTH. 

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weeks. A man made $12.50 in one day. Another $31.00 in one week. Another $40 00 in 
eio:ht days. Another made $127.00 in fifteen day.s. and other agents have liad e(iual 
success. It makes little difference wliether j^ou have had experience as an a,trtMit or 

not. Fairly presented, these Books wif! sell themselves. Everybody w 11 
want them. 

From the multitudes of testimonials we (luote just a few: 

Central Congregationalist: "Many of the incidents are exceedin.uly pathetic, and 
can scarcely fail to stir any tender heart to tears. 

The Union Signal, oro:an of the W. C. T. U.: ■•Tiiis book is neillier doctrinal noi 
denominational, yet distiiictly Christian. Tts high relisjious tone, its fascinatinjr bp 
and tlie hi^h rank of its contributors make it a strong faitli tonic and an inspiration 
prevailing' prayer." 

Michigan Christian Advocate: "The larijer issue of this work lias been widely cir- 
culated and read. This cheaper edition contains such selections as are calculati'd to 
interest and instruct children. The incidents are very pathetic." 

Write at once for terms to Agents. Be early in tlie field. A copy of each 
book is all the outfit needed. These will be sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, and half 
of this amount will be credited to yt)ur account as soon .is you oi-der lialf a dozen or 
more hooks. 

S. B. SHAW, Publisher, 25 Canal St., Grand Rapids, Mich. 

i^?^ We ship books from Cincinnati, Ohio. Mention this paper when you write. 
Special indticement.s to Sunday Schools tliat want books. 
























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